The handwriting is on the wall, and rather than mourn the IP Phone, we should celebrate its short life. Perhaps "mourn" is too strong; its decline will be slow. Death in this industry is extremely slow--consider all the dead digital phones still freshly manufactured every day. So while death may be a point of contention or exaggeration, decline should not be. The IP phone peaked, and for the most part we missed the party.

The IP phone is a technical marvel. The technology in a basic VoIP phone today was quite literally a "pipe dream" back when Amazon only sold books. But it isn't enough. We now demand multifaceted communications from our devices. One of my favorite lessons in life (I like it so much I keep learning it) is that people don't buy technology, people buy applications. And the IP phone never really delivered anything more than the digital phone experience. I've been saying that statement now for quite some time, and the response typically goes like this: Are you crazy? How can you say that? Digital phones were Cat-3. What about unified messaging? What about click to dial? Blah blah blah. Let's just settle this right now--99% of the benefits, features, breakthroughs associated with VoIP have to do with either the desktop computer (dashboards, feature access, click to dial, etc.) or the IP enabled phone system (SIP trunks, IP trunks, unified messaging, click to dial, etc.). The desktop VoIP phone, though technically radically different than its predecessors, remains both stagnant and confusing. The 1% of new value on the actual phone relates to the veritable microbrowser built into most IP phones. This powerful and secure browser has little practical use and it's rare to spot applications in the wild.

"Stagnant and Confusing"--that really should be a contradiction. If phones have not changed, they should be familiar and simple--not confusing. That is actually a very key point; hold that thought--first an explanation of stagnant and confusing. "Stagnant" because you can go back to the 80s and find digital phones with features such as touch-tone dialing (with alphanumeric keys as long as you don't need a Q or Z), and all time favorite buttons such as Hold, Transfer, and Speaker. As I am sure someone said in the 80s--why mess with something good--so the basic design and use of the phone remains largely unchanged. Today's phones are improved--a top-of-the-line IP phone today can do hold, transfer, speaker with a touch screen and color display for about $800. In fact, I just saw a new phone that even has a photo screensaver that works almost as nice as the digital picture frame I got at Wal Mart for $40. So the core value of the phone remains basically unchanged for about 40 years. Almost all other technologies evolve. My typewriter is now a computer, my 1990s cell phone and my 2009 cell phone don't even appear to be related, my toaster-oven is now a microwave, but my rotary Bell phone still works great. Few desktop accoutrements don't evolve (stay away from my HP-12C).

The "Confusing" part is no one really knows how to work their phone. PBX pop quiz: 3-way conference, you are talking to Joe and want to include Bob, you press Transfer/Conference (sometimes labeled simply "Transfer," sometimes "Flash" (my current Mitel phone uses an arrow, vertical line, and 3 heads) dial Bob, wait for Bob to answer (very important), but unfortunately the call goes to voice mail. What do you do? According to my extensive statistical research, 73.2% do the wrong thing. Now Bob calls you on line 2 realizing he missed your call, now how do you bridge the calls together? These types of features are available on virtually all PBX systems, but few benefit from them (don't get me going on call park). Here's another favorite: the PBX phone has a headset jack on the back (RJ-11); there are something like 316 headset models at the store; what is the probability of selecting a headset that A) will work with your phone and B) that you will like? This requires advanced Erlang mathematics, but the answer is exactly 8.43%. If a different store only has 20 models to choose from, the probability decreases to 2.832%.

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