There's no getting around the fact that desktop telephones were not a hot product category at Enterprise Connect. None of the big platform vendors--the guys we used to call "PBX" vendors--pushed desk phones, though some, like Siemens, certainly incorporated them into demos of more cutting-edge applications, like mobility (see here, for example.
So desk phones themselves will probably never be sexy in and of themselves, but what you can do with a desk phone or how you can optimize your investment in desk phones will continue to be very important because (all together now:) The Desk Phone Isn't Going Away.
So a company like Germany's snom, which specializes in desk phones, has to position itself for this new world, and after speaking with Mike Storella, their COO, post-Enterprise Connect, I think they're on the right track.
Mike emphasized their 821 model phones' ability to natively connect with Microsoft OCS (snom's 300 phone already had this ability); Lync compatibility, including features like E-911 and call admission control, will arrive later this year.
The snom 821 won't run the full Communicator/Lync client, but it does have a screen that supports some of the basic Microsoft features, including presence,'contact list, corporate directory search capabilities and device lock capabilities. If you're going whole-hog with Lync, you might opt for more expensive Polycom or Aastra phoens that can run the client, but if it's a wide-scale rollout of basic telephony to desk-bound workers, you're more likely to opt for either snom or lower-end Polycom phones.
What Mike Storella emphasizes is that the same snom SIP phone that supports your Microsoft Lync users can also support Avaya and Cisco SIP deployments, so enterprises have more flexibility for hybrid networks or for transitioning from one vendor to another.
One thing that snom has been smart about doing as the desk phone has lost its sizzle is emphasizing not just price--the 821 lists at $279--but the value of a desk phone. As Mike Storella put it, "Tablets and laptops tend to be cycled out fairly quickly, but these phones will still be there in 15 years." In other words, desk-tethered phones may not be as sexy or even as useful as they once were, as more workers go mobile, but they can be (emphasis on the can be) a relatively low-cost investment over their useful lives.
Mike also brought up, unprompted, one of the phrases that recurred most often at Enterprise Connect: "User experience." While pushing snom as economical, relatively-basic desk phones, he also said, "We should be enhancing the user experience on our phones," with features like visual voice mail or touch-screens, or other types of functionality that people are used to with even basic cell phones.
I don't think we're living in a world where the model of spending 1/3 or more of your communications cost on desk phones is sustainable. Hopefully this will drive all the vendors to rethink their strategies on desk phones, and I think if they do this, they'll wind up with an approach that's a lot closer to snom's than they currently are.
