Standard Set For Phone, Computer Union

THE SUNDAY AGE

Wednesday May 5, 1993

INTEL Corp. and Microsoft Corp. said this week that they had agreed upon a standard way to integrate the telephone with the personal computer. The development will find its first market in telemarketing and customer-service environments, and will later reach a broader base.

Intel and Microsoft said the standard had been reviewed and supported by approximately 40 companies, including major telephone-switch manufacturers, PC and peripheral manufacturers, software developers and network providers.

The new specification is called Windows Telephony application programming interface because it was developed for the Microsoft Windows operating system, and future products to add telephony functions to PCs will be based on it.

Microsoft and Intel said products based on the specification would allow direct access to the telephone network and thus would enhance such existing PC applications as data base management, personal information management, spreadsheet use and word processing. _ New York Times