Integrated communications and computing environment for customer premises

A discussion is presented of the integration of communications and computing capabilities at the level of the user's involvement-the application level. The desirability of presenting each service in a consistent manner at the high-level application programming interface is discussed. The advantages of implementing systems in this way are considered. In particular, applications programmers can configure their applications from a rich set of capabilities using the consistent application programming interface, rather than having to program each facility in a variable way. There is a further payback of higher quality software because of the experience developed in the application support environment code. A practical implementation-that of British Telecom (BT)-is outlined. Two applications requiring the integration of communications and computing at the user's desk and which could be automated using the BT approach are described.<>