Boeing's Jumbo Phone-System Overhaul

<<<... Cisco says its CER (Cisco Emergency Responder) system is designed to send location information for callers on the IP telephony network to 911 systems; it refers customers that need a system for responding to emergency calls to a partner, CML Emergency Services.

 Naughton's team figures Boeing's IP telephony project will have an IRR (internal rate of return) of 49 percent over seven years. It means, in general terms, that over that period Boeing would save an average of 49 cents per year for every dollar invested.

That's a fairly high return for an information-technology project. But financial analysts say Boeing's seven-year time span indicates its biggest projected savings will come in the project's latter stages.

They also point out that IRR assumes returns can be reinvested into a project, which is not always the case. (Boeing declined to detail its IRR calculations.) Boeing expects its biggest gains in the reduced cost of moving, adding or changing employee phones. A Boeing worker moves an average of 1.7 times per year; that's 272,000 instances per year when a technician must help a person relocate his or her phone, a function the company has outsourced to IBM Global Services. more>>>