Switching to VoIP

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2007 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

Business Environment

|

167

newer technologies (see Figure 8-1). The early majority of organizations are those

that mitigate the risk of a business investment with a more conservative wait-and-see

attitude. The late majority of adopters wait until the price of the technology has been

brought down by the early crowd, and then they adopt. As far as VoIP goes, it will be

a few years yet before the late majority begins to adopt the technology. The late

minority of organizations tend to be very small, often one-person, shops that have no

choice but to wait until a technology is so accepted, so standardized, that it can be

implemented with a minimal investment and almost no risk. Is your organization

historically a late majority or early minority adopter? Does your company’s attitude

toward technology match your desire as an administrator or system builder to

embrace VoIP?

Efficiency

When considering an investment in VoIP, you’ve got to justify the expenditure of

implementing all that shiny new hardware and software against VoIP’s benefits to

the organization. Increased network efficiency is a possible benefit. Is your organiza-

tion’s network an efficient one? Would VoIP have any impact on existing levels of

service to which your users are accustomed? Would voice traffic added to once data-

only ...