From: Infoworld Newsfactor News Wire
We live in a world of redundancies. Take the telephone. Most of us
> probably have one sitting right there on our desk, next to our
> computer. It's used for talking to people. But do we really need a > separate device?
> "No" is the short answer from a growing number of tech heavyweights
> pushing "unified communications" technology that combines and
> integrates voice, video conferencing, e-mail and IM on a single IP > network.
The reason for having the telephone separate from the computer network (and even the electric power connection) is so that it will still work when the others don't.
Imagine being completely incommunicado during a computer network failure.