On the train this morning I was researching the history of Cisco Call Manager. A thing about IT megacorps: they never invented most of their products
cisco bought the whole range from a company called Selsius Systems. they didn't even rename the core product - it was called Call Manager at Selsius too. they did remodel the phones,, , , a bit
post ur glow up 
anyway so i was reading about this company. the selsius wiki says "Selsius Systems was borne out of Incite, a division of Intecom, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardere SCA" jesus christ
ok so first i wondered who intecom was. found this paragraph in a 1994 "who's who in ATM" catalog with this incredible cover art
sidenote: in the mid to late 90s, if you were in networking and someone mentioned ATM, apparently your head would pop off and steam would gush from all of your orifices because ATM was just the horniest thing in the networking world. it's basically a joke now
Unsurprisingly, I ask Google "show me pictures of an Intecom PBX" and Majel Barret Roddenberry's voice through a bandpass filter responds "Fat chance sucko, central LCARS computer core is offline"
I do know that they got acquired by Aastra in the 2000s? And as is so common in telecom it's very hard to figure out where the technology went. Was the Intecom E / Pointspan 6880 an Intecom design? An Aastra design rebranded? Something new? Who knows.
Why do I care? Well, when a tech company buys another, that's meaningless. They're buying two things
1) Access to IP / branding (e.g. free profit off a known name)
2) 2-10 engineers / product designers
1) Access to IP / branding (e.g. free profit off a known name)
2) 2-10 engineers / product designers
Hardware vendors, in particular, do not reinvent the things they buy, nor do they put their own engineers to work figuring out how it works. Every piece of electronics is a puzzle box to reverse engineer; it's easier to just let the original designers keep working on it.
Every design team has their set of quirks and habits. Polycom phones have had the same menu structure for nearly twenty years. They even took that menu structure and imposed it on top of their new Android-based conference phone.
So what I look for, when I look at history of tech companies, is junk DNA. Leftover genetics from earlier eras. I like that, I like to see that an idea that one guy had in 1996 still lives on inside a platform being sold at breakneck pace by a megacorp in 2018.
one of those remaining touches is the actual name - i can't believe they kept it for 20 years. it was called Call Manager in 1998 and it still is. It's perhaps more surprising that it hasn't been spun off, sold to anyone else.
How many software packages *have* an uninterrupted lineage of 20 years?
The interesting thing is that Intecom was working on their own IP PBX, "Intecom E"
(yes, I have since found out that it *was* an intecom original), which supposedly was successful up into the 2000s. This shit is weird to think about
(yes, I have since found out that it *was* an intecom original), which supposedly was successful up into the 2000s. This shit is weird to think about
So it's like this
Intecom was working on IP telephony
They spun off one team into Selsius, which built an IP PBX
Intecom built an IP PBX
Selsius sold to Cisco, became the most successful PBX in existence
Intecom continued to sell theirs too
Intecom was working on IP telephony
They spun off one team into Selsius, which built an IP PBX
Intecom built an IP PBX
Selsius sold to Cisco, became the most successful PBX in existence
Intecom continued to sell theirs too
Intecom also had a Windows-based call center server (not sure what that means exactly) called CallWise Centergy which is a powerfully 1999 name
OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE IS THERE ANYONE IN THE COMPUTING WORLD THAT WASN'T OWNED BY EVERYONE ELSE IT'S LIKE A GOD DAMN KEY PARTY
