It evolved into a mishmash of businesses--network boxes for carriers, PBXs for offices, phones, semiconductors and Bell Labs.

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In 1973 he cofounded Mitel, which pioneered electronic switching systems that allowed for operator-free PBXs and touch-tone phone sets.

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Renert says Tello works with products from Cisco Systems and Avaya, makers of traditional private branch exchanges (PBXs), plus Digium, an open-source PBX software company.

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While manufacturers of ACDs and PBXs were busy making small customer-inspired tweaks, they missed the onslaught of a massively disruptive new technology--and suffered the consequences.

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He knew that one day PBXs would handle all kinds of information -- video, voice or data -- and wanted to have them in a central location.

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In addition, the company has signed a memorandum of understanding with a U.S. systems integrator and a maker of telephone PBXs to become channel partners in the distribution of the technology.

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But forget all the techie acronyms--the point is that the guys building PBXs and ACDs were adding new features to their existing equipment, yet only able to make small incremental improvements based on what their customers were telling them.

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