The robust and reliable Windows platforms—whether Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0—combined with TAPI, and other key APIs and Win32 functions, such as SAPI, MAPI and Wave Audio, along with the powerful addition of ActiveX Controls, provide the ideal platform for rich telephony applications.
Microsoft's goal is to make the telephone as common a PC peripheral as the monitor or printer. TAPI allows applications developers to take advantage of the telephone network to create a world of telecommunications applications.
This combination of Windows with TAPI and related Windows APIs enables a spectrum of client-only, client/server, and server-based telephony uses and applications, including: