Originally posted by hbiss:
If there is no conspiracy then how do you explain Many companies now place telecom staff in the IT department?
I think that the average corporate office worker spends more time each work day on their computer workstation than talking on the telephone. Workstations, servers, and the networks that connect everything together are far more complex than the telecom equipment in the same office environment. These complex IT systems require support staff for end-users and the infrastructure that operates behind the scenes to allow modern office workers to do what they do. Since there are so many IT people compared to the number of telecom people and since most companies now seem to operate on the premise that anything with a power cord, display and input device should fall under IT then telecom groups end up in the IT department.
Many companies have a Chief Information Officer (CIO) or a Chief Technology Officer (CTO). You'll notice that there is Information & Technology in those titles, but no mention of telecom. Companies adopt VoIP (and focus on IT) not because of a conspiracy, but because the bulk of the support staff is more comfortable with VoIP (and IT work in general) than with a phone switch.
General purpose computers, even with all of the support issues, save companies money. Every square foot of office space costs money. Every piece of office furniture costs money. General purpose computers are far more compact than the sum of all of the devices they replace.
With the right software and a headset you can even use your computer in place of a telephone. Marginally acceptable now, the day will probably come that softphones will be the rule on the average corporate desktop. If you think that telephone desk sets will never go away, talk to the people who sold typewriters, adding machines, small typesetters, and stand-alone word processors.
I'm not trying to be incendiary and my comments all pertain to companies with, say, 500 employees or more. I think that smaller businesses would be crazy to rely on their data network for voice traffic without a full-time IT person. I certainly won't be replacing my Partner ACS with a VoIP system at home any time in the near future.
