Why Do the PBX vendors still make Giant Phones?
The new VoIP phones are exciting. They stand tall on the desk, proud – showing off their large screens and numerous (Superfluous) buttons. It is very impressive to see the product placement of these large phones in so many television shows.
But what I don’t understand is why are they all still so big?
My cell phone, smaller and lighter than just my handset on my desk phone. It contains:
- A full directory/address book
- Wifi capability
- Battery
- Camera
- Speaker phone
- Bluetooth and Headset jack
- Email client
- IM client
and more.
My desk phone is a large phone, probably the biggest phone I’ve ever had. It contains:
- A nice quality speaker phone
- Headset Jack
- Esoteric menu button for difficult to access features
- Large LCD display with less functionality than my cell phone display
- An Extra LAN port
That is about it. So with all this technology, why can’t we get the phones smaller?
These type of size contraditions appear elsewhere in technology – but not quite like this. Compare a notebook with a PC desktop. In less size than the desktop processor alone, the notebook has a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. But typically the notebook costs more. We pay a premium for the small size and portability. Not the case with phones. In fact, the bigger and heavier the phone, the more expensive.
I don’t beleive the desktop phone needs more features. These advanced features we desire will soon all be available via the desktop. However, I do beleive the desktop phone needs to get much smaller. In fact, like the old Trimline phone – basically the footprint of a comfortable handset.
I predict the Trimline will come back again. Probably as a wireless phone (unseen base using Dect technology), the push buttons on the inside, and a small display on the back. Just like keyboards, we can’t get too small. The phone can’t get much smaller than a comfortable handset – and soon the PBX vendors will figure it out.
– Dave
By Dave Michels
Dave is an independent analyst and founder of TalkingPointz which is focused on enterprise communications. In addition to this (free and paid) content on TalkingPointz, he contributes to industry sites, can be found at major industry events, and provides advisory services to vendors and financial analysts.