Boeing's Jumbo Phone-System Overhaul

<<<... In this post, which he has held since 2000, the 20-year Boeing veteran oversees more than 400 network engineers who support the company's global voice, video and data communications infrastructure. To date, Naughton says, Boeing has switched 20,000 employees—about 13 percent—over to IP phones, with another 15,000 to 20,000 planned for 2006.

It expects gradually to retire 125 circuit-switched phone systems, including several from AT&T and Avaya, over the life of the project; about a dozen have been taken offline so far. They will be replaced with between 25 and 30 Cisco CallManager clusters, each composed of four Intel-based servers. Boeing won't say how much it's spending on its IP telephony project, but according to rough industry estimates, the tab will probably exceed $150 million. Naughton says a major reason for spreading the project over seven years is to not blow a hole in the company's information-technology budget.

 "We have to manage this investment within the profit and loss of the corporation," he says. "The amount of investment we make year to year will vary. A higher priority may come along and we'll have to say, 'buy fewer phones this year.'" In general, Cisco's IP telephony system provides all the basic functions Boeing expected. But Naughton says some advanced features were missing at first. more>>>