Alcatel launches “smart deskphone”

Alcatel-Lucent has announced the availability of its innovative “smart deskphone” on a range of communications platforms. The Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch 8082 My IC phone will be available on the Alcatel-Lucent OpenTouch suite of communications platforms, which were  launched yesterday, as well as the leading Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Enterprise platform as part of two packaged offerings for the hotel industry in the second quarter.  It is scheduled to be available for the Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Office platform in the third quarter.

Addressing the need to provide enterprise employees with more powerful tools to manage communications and applications from their desktop, the smart deskphone delivers a multimedia communication experience by bringing together enterprise reliability, security and high-quality audio with immediate access to a range of employee and customer applications.

“Today’s users are accustomed to the powerful experiences delivered by smart phones with seemingly unlimited applications, yet when they use the traditional desktop phone they are in effect stepping back in time,” said Nicolas de Kouchkovsky, chief marketing officer, enterprise, Alcatel-Lucent. “With our new My IC Phone, we extend communications beyond simple voice calls with limited applications into a true multimedia experience with access to a range of applications that drive improved productivity and easier access to people and information.”

Transforming the guest experience, the Alcatel-Lucent My IC phone for the hotel industry comes in two packages. The “Basic” package includes a customised homepage for the phone’s user interface that is optimised for hotels, providing streamlined guest services like room check-out and wake-up calls. The “Rich” package offers advanced capabilities that allow the guest to control such functions as climate control, lighting, and media services for music and movies. The “Rich” version also allows hotels to display customised promotional messages and advertising directly on the phone’s interface – all tailored to the individual guest experience.

Creating a new world of applications to the desktop phone experience, Alcatel-Lucent is driving a global community of developers to bring thousands of applications to the My IC Phone. Leveraging an open approach to optimise application development, Alcatel-Lucent provides a set of APIs and SDKs, which are publically available at via the company’s application developer community portal. Part the of Alcatel-Lucent Application Partner Program, the My IC phone developer community recently passed 1,000 developers worldwide and this number is expected to grow with the phone’s availability.