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If last week's Computer Telephony Expo here was any indication, Microsoft Corp.'s Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) is enjoying a surge of developer interest that threatens to overwhelm a rival API from Novell, Inc.
At the show were nearly 60 service providers and applications developers that back TAPI because, they said, it is more flexible than Novell's offering and will later this year become a standard feature in both Windows NT and Windows 95.
But analysts warned that neither of the computer-telephone integration (CTI) schemes is widely deployed, and both are more expensive than advertised.
While Microsoft's TAPI appears to be picking up steam, Novell's Telephony Services Application Programming Interface (TSAPI) has garnered few users since its delivery last May. According to Sheila McGee-Smith, Dallas-based director of analysis and forecasting for Pelorus Group, a market research firm in Raritan, N.J., Novell, AT&T and Comdial Corp. have made only about 20 sales of TSAPI-based products totaling no more than 2,000 desktops. AT&T and Comdial are believed to...