Hi
@Christian klarer,
First, let me be clear the following is just my carefully considered opinion. I do not have any insider information, nor do I have a crystal ball.
I have been monitoring the 3CX forums closely for several years and there is no stated date for the retirement of the legacy Windows client. But, there is also no question that retiring this client is the ultimate goal of 3CX. There are, however, a few features supported by the legacy client that are not yet available in the PWA client. That fact is probably the only thing delaying 3CX from discontinuing support for the legacy Windows client.
In my view, unless we hear differently from 3CX, you have to be very careful about making promises to customers if they are dependent on TAPI (Windows legacy client). To be clear, I have been expecting 3CX to retire the legacy client for several years now, and obviously I am not clairvoyant because the client is still here, and still supported. However, at various times 3CX has officially stated that there will not be any further development on this client. Nevertheless, due to customer demand, 3CX has reconsidered this position and has continued to make modifications. Will that continue... is unknown.
I would not be surprised if 3CX were to drop support for the legacy client tomorrow, but at the same time, I would not be surprised if the client is still supported 5 years from now. My uncertainty is the result of the inconsistent messages we have received from 3CX over the last several years. So, be careful making promises.
On the subject of TAPI...
There are two realities: (1) Microsoft has not supported TAPI in 20+ years, and (2) far, far too many software companies have chosen (incorrectly) not to move away from TAPI to another supported technology.
As a programmer myself, I looked briefly into doing some work with TAPI and discovered quite quickly that you have little choice but to go back to some really, really old libraries to work with TAPI. Those libraries are completely incompatible with any development technologies in use today. Doing anything new with TAPI is a stupid waste of time.
For the life of me, why would any software company continue to rely exclusively on TAPI? It begs the question how old and outdated their software has become, and whether I would want to run my business with such antiquated software. In my view, everyone should have started moving from TAPI the second Microsoft announced they would no longer support the technology over 20 years ago.
But we have to recognize that It is hard/impossible for us as 3CX partners to dictate to our potential customers that they change their business software to accommodate 3CX. About the only thing we can do is educate our customers and help them conclude it is time for them to modernize their business software as well as their phone system... good luck with that one.
