[Discuss] Paperless falling behind the Phoneless Office?

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey (blu))]

> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On Behalf Of Dan Ritter
> 
> Cost.

Also features.  Get your voicemail as an email attachment, wherever you happen to be in the world.  Install the softphone client on your laptop (or your smartphone), and actually *receive* and make calls using your normal office extension, wherever you happen to be.

Have international offices?  Connect your PBX to their PBX.  Now you have 4-digit (or whatever) extension dialing anywhere to anywhere within the company, and it's all free.

Forget somebody's extension?  Don't you think it's silly that you *ever* knew anybody's phone number?  Touch the directory button on the phone, and scroll down to "Bob" or key in his name, or whatever.  Or press the voice activation button, and say "Call Bob."

3-way conference call...  N-way conference call...

$400 for equipment that will last 3 years or more ($133/yr) is nothing, if it affects the productivity of the $100,000 employee using it (including benefits and overhead, $130k/yr = $390,000 over 3 yrs).  

The cost of the phone hardware isn't even in the 0.1% range of the cost of the person.

Also, dress for success.  Interview candidate comes into a rickety run-down office, gives the best interview of their life, decides not to join here because it looks old and stuff.  Phones are part of this.  Old laptops are part of this.  Old cubicles, old carpeting, old-style desks and chairs, everything that looks cheap or ugly degrades the overall appearance.  It might not matter to you, but it matters to a bunch of people, and I often see companies spending money on things that seem foolish, like mahogany desks and astronaut chairs and drilling holes through the concrete floor just to get the wires out of sight.

When I first started supporting macs in addition to windows laptops, the #1 and #2 reasons that people opted for the macs were "I want to try something new," and "I think it looks cool."