advantages that I see of VoIP -- besides the centralized/unified voicemail (others are doing this, too), we can actually share answering duties between sites transparent to the caller. lets managers allocate people power in new ways.
why we're even looking at VoIP -- our Nortel systems are aging....upgrading is not inexpensive....Nortel distributors are lacking and expensive....intangible, but Nortel has been in a bit too much hot water, laid off too many people to be real cozy with (perception being everything, as they say).
why Cicso now? -- street stories had always had it that Cisco is too complex and too expensive to install and maintain. one day a new Cisco factory rep paid us a cold-call, we figured we'd be polite for twenty minutes (we already are a Cisco house for routers and most LAN switches)....two hours later we were setting up a meet so he could bring back a voice engineer. that meeting also ran several hours. it came down to the mindset that we needed to look again at Cisco, if for nothing else than having truly done our due diligence before we spend a zillion bucks. we're a fifty site company, and growing, so we're not so far into ShoreTel that we couldn't do a turnabout, if needs be. Cisco is not a shoo-in, we're just about to have our first budgetary/planning meet. if there's sticker shock, this thing could go 'round yet again.
VoIP save money? -- the marketers will tell you "yes". long distance is cheap, though, so you'd be hard-pressed indeed to recoup the costs necessary to beef-up the network to support voice. VoIP is strong for the new ways people can communicate; the ways the system is managed/administered gets simpler; the new ways to spread-around labor -- not to replace people, but to allow more efficient call handling and customer service. no, I don't think VoIP is cheaper at all, but I do think it's inevitable (I've got a lot of Norstars and Option systems that I can run pretty cheap, and very trouble-free). Nortel End-Of-Life is forcing our hand on the Option systems, though, which forces new considerations for old ways of doing business.
by the way, I'm a voice guy, too, since the early eighties. Certainly no VoIP expert or network expert, but getting better. I started studying Cisco a couple of years ago when it looked like it could become a matter of survival; I'm a relocated Silicon Valley guy who lived through a bunch of ups and downs (read: layoffs and plant closures in the high tech world), learned that a person had better be marketable, with current skills that are needed, if s/he's going to feed the family on a regular basis. End here, we'll be needing the BBQ and some good red wine if we're going to wax philosophical. Hope this helps, let me know, if not.
Regards
royb
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