A part of Outside the Box Project (focusing on outside the US-based office telephony market)

Japan had a huge influence in the US telephony market, which would be an understatement to admit. While Nortel had the Norstar, and AT&T (later Lucent then Avaya) had the Merlin family and Partner and later IP Office, some offices had their comfort in Strata, Omega, or KX-xx.

Panasonic

Panasonic’s early KSU markets was the Easa-Phone. An Easa-Phone was basically an analog, using Plain Ol Telephones as the endpoints. Some specific Easa-Phones acted as “system” phones, even though those could be used on POTS lines as well. This “Easa-Phone” metaphor seems to be making a comeback from sketchy eBay sellers not based in the U.S. selling “PBX” systems that require only POTS phones.

Panasonic had two separate, but competing brands within, the DBS line and the KX-T. The DBS line was called the Digital Business System, and had a significant market, however the DBS didn’t resemble many of the visual looks of Panasonic electronics, ranging from documentation, to the signature bold-outline typeface of the model number, etc.

The KX series was from the Asian market. This also included all the consumer wired and cordless telephones made after the 1980s. There was no consumer equivalent to the DBS. Not knowing the KX series personally, the there was KX-TA for analog, KX-TD for digital and their “Super hybrid” which I am unsure where the “hybrid” because it means so much just in the office telephony space.

One of their signature features in the late 1990s terminals had the “jog shuttle” that replaced navigation buttons, and volume keys. Anyone in video or professional audio production probably would’ve noticed that unique feature.

Panasonic favored the KX line of office phone systems so by 2003, the DBS line was discontinued. Any customers who had DBS would migrate to KX line. From my observations, I have not seen a site use a DBS system in years.

Panasonic by the mid 2000s introduced hybrid (in the sense of TDM and IP) and currently markets SIP phones that are not dependent to their offerings as well as IP phones in their own systems.

Toshiba

Toshiba made their presence in the mid 1980s with the Strata line of Key Telephone Systems. Facing a lot of competition to nix the very hard wired analog multi lines, they would get significant install base from local retailers, to large ones. The next evolution was the Voice over IP market, which Toshiba did, and redesigned their sets to mock the Nortel line. But Toshiba had their own issues, mixed in NOT having a Software as a Service/”the cloud” platform as a business model, the company made a decision in late 2016 to get out of the market. But Mitel came in at the last moment, bought them out. While it’s highly unlikely they will continue any production, favoring them to go to VOIP with their combined Mitel/Shoretel offerings; it’s not to say that Stratas will still be in use for many years to come.

Iwatsu

Another Japanese with foreign subsidiaries, Iwatsu, while obscure, has been around for a long time. While a few sites use them, in the States, it’s not that random. In fact it’s over 80 years old. The company was founded in 1938. They were a supplier to the Nippon Electric Company, better known as NEC. Their other niches were photocopiers, fax machines, test equipment etc. While since the inception, they made telephone components, it wasn’t until the 1960s they started to develop and market electronic telephone systems. The Japanese saw the Americans developing electronic key systems and the fax machines. By the 1970s they branched out and had foreign subsidiaries to avoid tariffs. The American office was incorporated in New Jersey in 1975. While their products were made in Japan, later on; they were later made in Taiwan.

Their products to this day range from the key telephone systems to moderate sized PBX systems ranging up to 1024 ports. They also market IP based systems and sets, using H323 based sets (meaning you still need an Iwatsu “brains”.)

A few online forums have Iwatsu board in case you run into one.

 

Other guys:

Hitachi also had market, and had a deal with Comdial using their shells with their own hardware, while Hitachi helped make Comdial phones overseas to keep the costs down. However you can’t plug a Hitachi into a Comdial and vice versa. Fujitsu also had a market for the mid-sized PBX, known as the F9600. However while installed in a number of locations, Fujitsu didn’t add or improve the F9600 and by the turn of the century, the system was almost a telephony vaporware.