I find that the back bone of the economy - well run small and medium businesses- do not have access to capital. They are struggling to improve efficiencies to stay afloat. I think all of us will see that as more and more of these businesses discover that efficiencies can be expensed - “no need to own the cow to drink a glass of milk”- hosted servers, hosted applications, hosted IP telephony will be the most prevalent solutions.

The repercussions? They will be felt by the large manufacturers whose economies of scale are still based in production. Why should a 60 person office spend $60,000 on a system, when they can expense 100% of that by going with a hosted provider? I think that a cursory look at the downward spiral of Nortel stock price is a bell whether of what is to come- Avaya, Cisco and others- will fall in short order. I think that effective smaller manufacturers - like Shoretel-be stable. The winners? Hosted Providers!

Take a look at SNET (http://snetcommunications.net) and IfbyPhone (http://ifbyphone.com) and you’ll see what I am talking about. Specialized applications, small providers with great service and a small monthly fees. End users will be looking for the expertise to set the right suite of services and they will reap the benefits. The losers - will be the current titans. Large enterprises that are too heavily invested in technology.

But then again, that’s just this fat bald guy’s opinion.

In the interest of keeping it real, I am  beginning the Prime Telecommunications blog with a promise to communicate as effectively and honestly as I can about current developments in connectivity, telecom news and information from the IT world.

I will do my best to attempt to make the posts relevant, interesting and professional. The formula that I will use will have 50% of the information about telecommunications and connectivity issues, 25% about how we are integrating solutions at Prime Telecommunications and about 25% as my own soap box. 

As we wind up the year and enter the economic uncertainty that is all too prevalent, I think that we need to find better ways to work more effectively and efficiently. However, we all know that budgets will dry up and taht we need to find solutions that are cost effective (read: CHEAP) and fulfill a measurable need - not just a technology want.

I read an article in this week’s edition of Network World (http://www.networkworld.com)   by Andreas Antonopoulos (andreas@nemertes.com) from Nemertes Research (http://www.nemertes.com). Andreas introduced me to “Shadow IT”. According to him, “shadow IT ” is all the technology that was neither planned nor approved by anyone, that gets chosen, deployed and used. It’s one of the most insidious hidden costs of IT - where decisions get made, costs get generated and sometimes those who introduced the “solution” leave to work elsewhere. What happens to the organization? At best, they wind up with an IT solution that looks like a business suit that I tailored - even though I can’t sew. At worst, there can be security breaches, licensing fiascos and just chaos!

 In telecom, I have seen pretty much of the same. Lines, circuits, and volume commitments get contracted - without following clearly thought out purchasing guidelines. It always seems that carrier representatives get better looking and more clueless as time goes on. I would add “younger” but that would be cruel. Many carriers are using more of a “scripted” sales process and deceptive scripts. I have seen situations where if the salespeople are attractive enough, the client never checks the fine print - and by the time they do, the regret is palpable.

In the past month we have offered our clients a free maintenance check up. (http://primetelecommunications.com/maintenance ). I go to client sites, make sure that they are up to par and make recommendations. At least it gets people thinking. One of the five components is the cost analysis - you’d be surprised how otherwise astute people are lulled into zombie like complacency to pay money for services they either shouldn’t use, misuse or abuse. As my friend Larry says “money is a fungible asset. You can pay too much for what you don’t really want or need”. I have seen clients paying for circuits - T1’s- that are not used! I had a client paying for numbers that had been disconnected. I had a client with a 411 bill that looked like the numbers from the bank bailout! 

Moral of the story: someone knocks on your door and asks you to sign a contract, read it and make sure you understand it. Never give your approval on the phone for volume commitments or new services and read your contracts!