A new Java-based application programming interface designed to connect telephones, computers and various other devices that connect to the Internet has been developed by Sun Microsystems Inc. The Java Telephony Toolkit, or JavaTel, is supported by IBM Corp, Intel Corp, Lucent Technologies Inc, Northern Telecom Ltd and Novell Inc. JavaTel joins the battle to form a de facto standard at the desktop for the sluggish computer-integrated telephony and videoconferencing market. So far the desktop market has seen Novell Inc’s TSAPI and Microsoft Corp’s TAPI interfaces competing. However, according to analysts JavaTel is more likely to complement the existing application programming interfaces rather than compete directly. The Java application p rogramming interface will link any telephone, appliance or networked computer to any Java-based application, said Sun. The aim is to join data packets with circuit networks and build a call model for multiple data types for use with devices too small to load a net browser, according to Doug Ehrenreich, director of market strategies and technologies for Sun. According to Sun, a number of specialist videoconferencing companies are also likely to support the application programming interface by building the JavaTel application programming interface into their products. The core JavaTel application programming interface will provide a uniform interface for basic telephony functions such as call set-up, disconnect, hold and call transfer. Applications supporting JavaTel will be able to run on any Java-compatible device. There will also be JavaTel Extension Packages to add functionality to the core application programming interface.
