Converting a nullable object to an integer

As of .NET 2.0, we have a built-in way[^] of converting a Nullable<T> object to an object of type T with a default::

int? a;
int b = a.GetValueOrDefault(-1);

So to converting an object to an integer would then be:

object someValue = null; // Can be anything
int convertedInteger = ((int?)someValue).GetValueOrDefault(-1);