My TA News

Which Telecom Partners & Network Vendors are Successfully Selling IT Services? Let TA Tell Your Story!

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

If you're a telecom agent or network services vendor that is successfully selling IT services like help desk, remote backup, or hosted desktop, etc., I would very much like to interview you and share your story with Telecom Association's 3,800 members.

I'm currently writing an "IT Services Buyers Guide & Toolkit" for small businesses who are trying to solve their IT support problems by investing in "the cloud".

I put "the cloud" in parenthesis because inspite of all the hoolpa about cloud at the recent Channel Partners show in Las Vegas, I'm not completely convinced that "the cloud" is something that most small business owners are really wanting to buy.

Individual IT services though like "IT Help Desk" support paid for by the minute or by the seat is a solution I think most business owners are OK with seeing on a monthly IT services invoice on their phone bill.

But while I've actually purchased a Verizon IT Help Desk subscription service for my own office computers (which I'm reasonably happy with) I've never sold "IT Services".

So who has?

In researching the matter today I spoke with Earthlink about their recent IT Services Advisory Panel where they queried partner distributors regarding the best way to sell IT services through telecom partners, the Earthlink partners I spoke with were still ramping up their sales of IT.

I then tried to call Al Afflitto of BestBuy/GeekSquad who just a year ago was signing up every agent he could find to sell GeekSquad IT Help Desk services.

Unfortunately Al informed me via email that BestBuy eliminated his job just last week.

I tried to find out what the back story was but he didn't seem to be in a very chatty mood so I put in an inquiry to Brian Hutto and AJ McDougall who, according to this article, seemed to work with Al at Best Buy.

When I clicked on the Partner Program link at the GeekSquad site, it too, as the image here suggests, seemed to be at least temporarily eliminated.

 

Let TA Provide You a Free Listing in our "IT Services Buyers Guide"

If you've got happy IT Services business customers (AT&T Tech Support 360, Verizon, Earthlink TechCare, etc) who will give you a TA Review, please contact me at Dan@TelecomAssociation.com so I can learn how you're successfully selling IT Services through the channel so the rest of us can learn from you.

BullsEye Telecom® Launches Hosted IP Bundle at Industry Trade Show

New Bundle to Change the Landscape of Hosted IP Communications for Businesses Nationwide

SOUTHFIELD, Mich.—March 27, 2012—National provider of integrated telecommunications solutions, BullsEye Telecom®, today launches one of the industry’s first business communications and network security bundles. This new bundle has been launched in response to a gap in the marketplace in which multi-site national accounts and small- to medium-sized companies typically spend a great deal of time researching, sourcing and selecting separate providers for telephone, Internet, security and network services. Now, for one low, flat per-location rate nationwide, this bundle effectively addresses all these challenges.

The standard package includes:

• Digital Voice lines
• High-definition IP phones
• Hosted IP PBX with powerful call management features
• Analog lines for fax and alarm as well as redundancy
• Internet access
• Proactive data network monitoring including bandwidth utilization, reachability, packet loss and
• latency
• Hosted auto-attendant service
• Mobility and unified communications features
• 3G Wireless failover to ensure that retailers are still able to process credit cards and transact
• business in the event of network failure

Other available options include managed VPN, firewall, data security and PCI Assurance. Packages are available in two-, four-, eight- and twelve-phone configurations.

Describing the client profile that will benefit from this solution, Bill Oberlin, chief executive officer at BullsEye Telecom Inc. explained, “We’re targeting businesses with an expanded regional presence.” According to Oberlin, it does not matter whether a business has five or 500 locations, the bundle is flexible and scalable to meet all unique requirements.

BullsEye Telecom’s bundled solution is positioned to change the telecom landscape for small- and medium-sized and multi-location businesses. Companies will enjoy sophisticated feature functionality without the capital expense or the dedicated employee resources that are often required to manage individual phone, Internet, business continuity and network security solutions.

Benefits from this bundle include:

• A single accountable partner providing a completely compatible telephone, Internet, security and managed services solution
• No upfront or capEx expenditure; instead all software and hardware components are included for one low monthly price
• Retailers are protected with a business continuity plan that ensures they have a backup plan in place in the event of an emergency

Commenting on the most significant benefit of this bundle, Tim Basa, vice president of sales, BullsEye Telecom Inc. said, “We like to call it the ‘Done-for-Them’ bundle. We know that business owners either don’t have or don’t want to spend the time shopping for all these different solutions. So we’ve done it for them.”

Done-for-You Marketing: Help Customers Increase Sales & Appointment Setting 400% Without More Phone Equipment

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

(Note: This is posted at BusinessPhoneNews.com and is designed as "done-for-you" marketing that authorized TA members can use on their end-user blogs and email newsletters.)

Any company that frequently contacts large numbers of prospects or customers by phone can achieve four-fold productivity increases with a hosted predictive dialer.

A predictive dialer is an amazing call center "SaaS" or software as a service solution, and can be particularly beneficial to any business that relies on inside sales people, either working on site or from a home office, to identify new sales opportunities; gather information about their marketplace, their customers, or their competitors; generate revenue; schedule large numbers of appointments; and perform other tasks that require extensive outbound outreach via telephone.

 

Phone Activities Improved by Hosted Predictive Dialing Include:

• 
  Appointment setting
• Cold calling
• Qualification and prioritization of campaign responses
• Nurturing of “hot” leads
• Phone-based sales to new prospects
• Up-sell and cross-sell initiatives to existing clients
• Customer loyalty programs
• Satisfaction surveys
• Market research
• Competitive analysis
• And much, much more!

Without a predictive dialing software package in place, agents waste valuable time repeatedly calling number after number – only to receive busy signals, voice mail messages, no answer, fax machines, or disconnected numbers. This reduces the number of “live” conversations they can conduct, and prevents them from spending as much time as possible interacting directly with their target audience. 

Predictive dialing software helps companies overcome these challenges. Predictive dialer systems are proven to dramatically improve the speed and effectiveness of agents and reduce costs, while allowing a much greater volume of calls to be initiated and maximizing talk time. As a result, business can more rapidly achieve their goals by performing faster, more successful outbound outreach. 

Industries that use hosted predictive dialers include:

• Auto Agents and Dealers
• Banks
• Carpet Cleaners
• Caterers
• Charities
• 
  Churches
• City Municipalities
• Credit and Collections
• Dentists
• Fundraising
• Healthcare
• Health/Fitness Organizations
• Home Improvement
• Insurance Agents and Brokers
• Investment Firms
• Janitorial Services
• Mortgage Services
• Physicians of all types
• Political Campaigns and Polling
• Recreational Leagues and Organizations
• Restaurants
• Retail
• Schools
• Unions
• Veteran Organizations

 

How to Choose a Hosted Predictive Dialing Solution Vendor

Multiple vendors are in the hosted call center marketplace all competing for you to conduct a trial with them.  Vendors worth considering include Five9, SafeSoft Solutions, Avaya, TelStar Hosted Services, InsideSales, YTel, StrataSoft, Front Range, Vocalcom, Angel, Telax, Contactual, Kunnect, ConnectFirst, VICIdial's VICIhost and many others.

If you don't have a hosted call center solution in place then any of these vendors will get you on the right path to increasing the productivity as much as 400% over a call center that does not use predictive dialing (or maybe not).

As with any multi-vendor and multi-application solution, the seemless integration of your existing phones, dial-tone and CRM will be critical to ensuring any productivity gains. Choose the wrong hosted call center solution that does not integrate well with your CRM and who knows what will happen?

That's why you need to work with an independent telecom agent or channel sales partner that has experience working with several different hosted predictive dialer solutions. Only working with an experienced professional can you avoid creating problems that you didn't have before you started down a hosted predictive dialer trial.

To find a channel partner or telecom agent with independent experience helping business customers choose a hosted predictive dialer, click here and scroll down to the "Call & Contact Center" category.

If you are an independent agent or channel partner skilled at helping business end-users choose a hosted call center solution please contact us at Dan@BusinessPhoneNews.com so we can provide you with a complimentary listing in our Recommended Member Directory.

Competitive Intelligence: Will Your Customers Choose SafeSoft's Hosted Call Center Solutions Over What You Recommend Now?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

SafeSoft Solutions, a California based company specializing in hosted call center solutions recently joined Telecom Association in an effort to share with TA's 3,800 members and their business customers why SafeSoft's set of hosted call center solutions, showcased by their "Market Dialer" are different or better than the call center and predictive dialer solutions that TA's independent members recommend now.

Since all of our readers are interested in getting new competitive intelligence to learn about a new service or solution that their customers might think is better, step one in introducing any new vendor to TA's members is having them sit for a "Competitive Self-Analysis Interview."

 

Is SafeSoft's Hosted Call Center Solution Better for Your Customers than What You're Recommending To Your Customers Now?

This is what we want to learn so we invited Aaron Kohut, SafeSoft's VP of Sales to answer our standard set of competitive intelligence questions.  

You can listen to the audio interview now with your computer speaker by clicking the audio player below. You can also click here to download the MP3 file.

 

 

The transcript of the interview is published below. Click here to print a transcript.

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Which Hosted Contact Center Predictive Dialing Solution is Right For Your Businesses Call Center Requirements?

A Competitive Self-Assessment of SafeSoft Solutions’ “Market Dialer”

A Business Phone News conversation with Aaron Kohut, the Vice President of SafeSoft Solutions, a hosted contact center solution provider. We've invited Aaron to share with us a competitive self-assessment of their services and solutions including their “Market Dialer” service so our clients know that through the vendors we partner with, our customers are getting the best technology services and solutions available in the marketplace today and tomorrow.

February 2012


DB:  Question #1.  Solution History - Can you give our audience of business end-users and technology consultants a quick history lesson on your services and solutions, how long has this service or solution category been around, and what business solutions or services are they replacing?

 AK:   Back in the early 80’s Predictive Dialers began as an on-premise hardware-based system, so they’ve been around for about 30 years. The hosted platform emerged in the 90s and became more popular as VoIP, (“Voice over IP”), technology was evolving.  Because VoIP offered lower telecom costs which were one of the expensive components, it definitely helped make the cloud-based service affordable and eventually became the preferred solution.

 

 

DB:  Question #2. Primary Customer Markets - Which vertical markets and/or customer types and sizes like your solutions or services best and pay attention to you the most? And, are there any metros where you are especially competitive?

 AK:   One of the great things about the Market Dialer is that it was designed to be universal and fit well into virtually any industry. From banking, to home improvement, to non-profit, and even political campaigning.

Our solutions will improve results in most verticals since we’ve successfully deployed our solution to various industries, and wide range of company sizes from small-to-medium size businesses, all the way to enterprise-level customers with hundreds of employees. The Market Dialer is so easy to use and so customizable that any size company in any industry can realize the benefits of the Market Dialer.

DONE-FOR-YOU-MARKETING: Explain "Presence" and Unified Communications to Your Hosted VoIP Customers & Prospects

By Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director
951-251-5155 email

Looking for a way to get into larger, multi-location and mid-sized business customer accounts? Start putting yourself out as a trusted advisor in the realm of "unified communications" or simply "UC".

Following is a blog post I wrote that helps explain the unified communications concept of "presence" to business owners and managers as it relates to their business phone system.  

Authorized TA members can use these and other BusinessPhoneNews.com blog posts for their own end-user business customer blogs and email newsletters.

Contact me for more information about using this content for your own marketing. 

Following is the content from this blog post:

*************

As the economy finally starts to pick back up for many American businesses, owners and managers are happy to see that their incoming phone lines are starting to ring again but sad to know that they still have not staffed their business back up to answer and properly address the increase in prospective customer phone calls.

How can a business owner get greater efficiency out the the reduced number of employees they have reporting to work each day?

Take a look at the "presence" feature offered by many newer "unified communications" (AKA "UC") business phone systems and services.

Below is a video that simply shows how the unified communications "presence" feature works on the NEC Univerge SV8100 phone system.

While the NEC phone system solution featured is produced by a "premise based" phone system (one where you make a major capital purchase and the phone system sits in your phone closet or a "private cloud") there are many similar enterprise grade "hosted VoIP" phone service solutions offered by companies like Smoothstone, Alteva, Telesphere, MegaPath, Broadview, Vocal IP and others.  

Subscribing to an enterprise grade unified communications solution from a hosted VoIP or "cloud" business phone service provider means a business owner can access "presence"-type features without having to commit their entire capital improvements budget for the year.

 

What's "Presence"?

When I first started selling business office phone systems 30 years ago, the phone on your desk helped you make and receive phone calls and not much more.

DONE-FOR-YOU-MARKETING: How to help your clients understand and choose you to evaluate "the Cloud"

By Dan Baldwin 
TA Executive Director
951-251-5155 email 

Following is the text to a blog post and email newsletter article that helps your business customers and prospects understand the benefits and decision points surrounding the issues of moving any part of their business into "the Cloud" (and which questions to ask prospective cloud consultants like you).

See all the done for you marketing pieces that you can license for your own customer blog & email newsletter at BusinesPhoneNews.com. 

 

**********

In the 20+ years I've been helping business customers choose telecom and technology solutions I've never had a customer call and say, "I need some cloud" or "Connect me to the cloud" or simply, "Cloud me, baby!"

When I have suggested to clients that their next technology solution can be provided to them from "the cloud" though some have asked, "What the heck are you talking about!"

Following is the simplest answer that I've ever come up with for the question "what's the cloud?"

"The cloud is actually a windowless building someplace that's built for the comfort of computers instead of people. One of the comfortable computers in the cloud is the computer that makes the 'call waiting' feature on your phone work. The cloud can accommodate almost any business computer that can help your business do almost anything."

 

What Parts of Your Business Benefit from a "Cloud Connection"?

Maybe some, maybe none, maybe all.  The decision really boils down to your your thoughts as a business owner around "convenience, cost and security".

Convenience - Can you conveniently access your business email account from any computer or

What CRM & Project Management Software Programs Are Telecom Agents & IT Consultants Using Successfully?

By Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director
951-251-5155 email

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to get all my customer projects organized in an adult way -- meaning, no more managing projects with spreadsheets -- I'm going to find a project management solution that integrates with my CRM (customer relationship management) solution -- which means I actually have to get a real CRM outside my Gmail and Google Calendar application.

Now I know I'm not still the only telecom agent or channel sales partner still using Outlook or Gmail and a bunch of Excel spreadsheets to manage their entire business. Over the past year I've asked dozens of peers what they're doing with CRM and/or some other SaaS (software as a service) to manage their business.

Many, like me, have tried SalesForce, SugarCRM, FreeCRM or one of

DONE FOR YOU MARKETING: Help Your Small Customers find the Right Unified Communications Vendor

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email 

Unified Communications or "UC" is usually thought of as an integrated business communications solution that only large businesses can afford.

Click here to view a blog post at BusinessPhoneNews.com you can share with your small customers to show them how you're an expert at helping them choose a UC vendor that tailors solutions for the under 100 phone set.

The post is also reprinted below.

*******************

I've been helping small and medium sized business customers choose business phone equipment and business phone services for over twenty years and I've never once had a customer or prospect with a office phone system problem call and ask me for a

Got Customers Wanting to Leave Blackberry for iPad, Android or iPhone? Share this Subject Matter Expert Interview With Them

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

(The following is a blog post from BusinessPhoneNews.com that TA members may use on their own websites, blogs or email newsletters at no charge after securing permission from TA via email.)

Blackberry outages have been well documented over the past several months as has been the outcry of unhappy Blackberry enterprise business customers.  The obvious questions begged by these headlines include:

What's preventing Blackberry customers from moving to the iPhone or the Android platform?

Does Blackberry have a monopoly on enterprise-class mobile security?

What does a migration strategy away from Blackberry look like?

To help answer these questions, and understand the related issues, I recently spoke with Moe Arnaiz, CEO of eMOBUS, a Telecom Association subject matter expert for enterprise mobility solutions.

To learn more about how your business can effectively migrate away from Blackberry to iPhones, iPads or Android devices contact your independent telecom agent or channel sales partner and ask them about the migration strategies suggested in this interview.

Following are the questions I posed:

1.  Please give us a history of Blackberry's perceived monopoly in the mobility space for enterprise businesses.  What is Blackberry layering on top of an AT&T, Verizon or Sprint phone number that makes it "so secure" for enterprise customers?

2.  What are some of the applications being used that requires such a high level of security by enterprise customers?

3.  How is it that Apple's iOS mobile operating system and Google's Android mobile OS are so inferior to the Blackberry BES mobile operating system?

4.  What's at the crux of Blackberry's recent outages?

5.  Can enterprise mobility customers get sufficient security such that a migration away from Blackberry is conceivable?

6.  How would a migration from BES to iOS, or Android, take place?  Is it justifiable?

Chicago Confidential: Last Day - Which "Cloud" Business Phone System Pitch Sells Best & What Happens Next?

Posted 8/26/11 By Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155

The promise of learning the best way to sell Alteva's unified communications business VoIP phone system "in-the-cloud" is what got me out of my office this week and to the semi-annual Channel Partners trade show hosted this Fall in Chicago.

I sat through two days of Alteva's Sales Certification program for one reason, to learn the best "cloud services" business phone system pitch so I could get busy selling more "cloud solutions" to all my customers that are supposedly just waiting to hear the right sales pitch to "buy some cloud" which will no doubt solve all their IT headaches.

While I'm sure we can all agree that the best VoIP/SIP/Cloud business phone system and related applications will be determined by more than just an "elevator pitch" - the biggest customer sale starts with an elevator pitch.

 

Who's Got the Best Business VoIP Phone System "Elevator Pitch"

So to make the best time of the last day of the trade show I went booth to booth recording every VoIP business phone system pitch I could find in order to hear (and them learn) the best one.

The following TA vendor members that provide business VoIP or "cloud" phone services are presented in alphabetic order.

Which one do you think is best?  Please leave a comment below. 

 

AireSpring

Ron McNab of AireSpring

*****************************************************************************

 

Alteva

Peter Caperonis of Alteva

*****************************************************************************

 

GLOBALINX

Michael Machonkin of GLOBALINX

*****************************************************************************

 

MegaPath

Ross Anderson of MegaPath

*****************************************************************************

 

Simple Signal

Dave Gilbert of SimpleSignal

*****************************************************************************

 

TouchTone

Steve Kaplan of TouchTone

*****************************************************************************

 

Vocal IP

Josh Redick of Vocal IP

*****************************************************************************

*****************************************************************************

Other Services Complimentary to Hosted VoIP 

AireSpring's MPLS Mesh Service

Ron McNab of AireSpring

*****************************************************************************

 

Ben Bronston, Telecom Lawyer

Ben Bronston, Telecom Lawyer

*****************************************************************************

 

Granite

Charlie Pagliazzo of Granite Telecom

 

What Happens Next? 

As telecom agents and channel partners it's our job to "learn the pitches" and sell the heck out of this stuff.

While certainly most telecom customers are going to want to dig all the way down to the nitty gritty (with your help) to find the best service providers for their unique position in the market, it's our job as professional independent sales advisers to help our customers understand which three vendors they start their conversations with.

That's where a good "elevator pitch" comes in.

So pick your favorite couple hosted VoIP and unified communications providers, learn their pitch, sell their stuff - and then tell me all about it at the next Channel Partners trade show in Vegas!

Looking for a "Cradle to Grave" Cloud Big Enough for Whatever the Future Holds for Your Customers? It's in San Diego

Posted 8/19/11 By Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155

When it comes to colocation or "cloud" data centers, how big is "big enough"? Are there some data centers that are just too small to get a decent computing job done? Can a data center be too big?

These are just three of the many questions that crossed my mind as I toured the cavernous, two story, 50,000 square foot new data center "purpose build" by three data center entreprenuers at San Diego's ScaleMatrix during the grand opening of their new facility.

I have to admit, over the past decade of touring data centers I guess I've just not given them much respect.  Most of the one's I've seen have been squeezed into fairly tight quarters in a basement somewhere with a lot of chain link fencing and freezing cold air.  Yesterday I was in a new type of data center big enough to park a 737 passenger jet in surrounded by almost 600 invited guests including the San Diego Chamber of Commerce for ScaleMatrix' grand opening. A new data center experience indeed.

 

Is Bigger Better for Colocation Data Centers?

But back to my question, "Is bigger better or too big?"  I honestly don't know. I've put the question to a couple business associates I know that make a living selling colocation services to businesses. (I'll be sure and let you know what they say.)

In every conversation I've ever had with a colocation broker only three things seemed to matter, power costs, power costs & power costs. (There was also the matter of security and redundant network access - but it was mostly about power costs).

Since I have never sold colocation in my life though I started reading what I could find about building such a gargantuan data center.  

If you're interested in the answer then check out this lengthy interview of the major players at ScaleMatrix.  You should likely focus on the "cradle to grave" comments about a data center customer's life cycle on page one of the interview.  

On the last page of the interview they talk about how customers looking at a $200,000 IT equipment upgrade can skip buying all the new gear and simply use ScaleMatrix' cloud for a couple grand a month. They also mentioned how enterprise businesses (and smaller) can put all their business phone system equipment in their facility to create their own hybrid hosted VoIP solution.

 

The "Real Reason" to Colocate in San Diego

In theory a business can have their colo space anywhere on the planet that has reliable access to fast Internet. Of course a good reason to have it in San Diego is it creates a nice "business reason" to go out to the facility as often as possible to make sure the computer racks are all at the right temperature.

Isn't that why so many business conventions are held in Las Vegas or Hawaii?

In all seriousness, when your customers move some or all of their business to "the cloud", it's not really in a cloud it's in San Diego or some other place like this Wyoming wind farm.  The important learning point for telecom agents and channel partners is that they need to make sure the recommendations they're giving their clients in the cloud/colo/hosting data center realm (there's a big difference between San Diego and Wyoming) make sense for the customer. 

 

What Do Agents Need to Do About All This?

Nothing more than make sure you ask every customer and prospect, "What are your cloud plans?" and "Which of your critical business applications are you looking to move off-site"?

Then hook up with a colocation consultant or broker that can make sure your customers are look at the right options for the right reasons.

Most all Telecom Association's vendors are involved in "cloud, hosting & colo" in one way or another so all you really have to do is start with the TA vendors you already trust.

Two TA members I know that seem to be experts in this area include Dany Bouchedid of Colotraq and Aaron Loehr of Bandwidth Advisors.

I've asked both of them to comment on this article to let us all know whether ScaleMatrix is a cloud/hosting/colocation solution that they'd recommend to their clients and prospects.

 

How to Buy or Sell Colocation, Hosting & Cloud Solutions Video

Click the video below to listen to Dany Bouchedidof Colotraq give a 45 minute lecture on buying & selling colocation, hosting & cloud services in October 2010.

Colocation & Managed Hosting Seminar by Dany Bouchedidof Colotraq

 

Done-for-You Marketing: Are Your Customers Worried About the "New Internet"? Tell Them About IPv6

Posted 8/18/11 By Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155

Following is a new Business Phone News.com blog post for end-user customers & prospects to get them worried about how the IPv6 "new Internet" will affect their business.

You're welcome to send the link to this information to your customers or you can license this "done-for-you marketing" content to put on your own blog or email newsletter.

 
The blog post title is:

Will Your Office Computer Network Fail When the Internet Switches to IPv6 in 2012?

 

The "KeyWords" for the blog post to get the search engines to find it are:

public Internet, business, al gore, webinar, internet switch to ipv6, important, office computer network, communicate over the internet, 2012, mayan apocalypse, affect IT costs, ip, internet protocol, naming convention, ipv4, computer, router, switch, smart phone, tablet, security camera, ipv4, telephone, telephone number, ip address, office pencil sharpener, ipv6 compatible, critical software, new internet, migration plan, the cloud, conspiracy, 1984, george orwell, audit, peter radizeski, rad-info, ipv6 webinar, OTMA028, business owner, it decision maker, action items

As you know, embedding keywords that your customers and prospects are searching for is the secret to getting Google and Bing to sending them to your blog post to learn that you're "the expert" that they've been looking for.

 
Following is the text of the blog post. You can also view it here.

I count on the public Internet to work in my day-to-day business dealings. If the public Internet stops working, so does my business.  But who even owns the public Internet and who's doing what to make sure it keeps working? Is it really Al Gore?

So when I was recently invited to listen to a webinar about the implications of the pending "Internet switch to IPv6" I said to myself, "Huh, that sounds kind of important."

I'm glad I got the information. Ten minutes into the presentation I'm thinking to myself, "This seems like a pretty big deal and it might start affecting my business this year or next!"

Following is what I think I've learned about the whole issue and what I'm sharing with my clients about what it means for their office computer network's ability to communicate over the public Internet next year and beyond after the public Internet "converts to IPv6".

Executive Summary: IPv6 is not the 2012 Mayan apocalypse some predict, but it is "something".

 

What Business Owners Need to Know About How IPv6 Will Affect Their IT Costs

1. What's IPv6?

IPv6 refers the the new "IP" ("Internet protocol") naming convention for any piece of gear on the Internet (computers, routers, switches, smart phones, tablets, security cameras, etc.) that needs to be found by any other piece of gear.  The older naming convention is IPv4.

 

2. What's the IPv4/IPv6 problem?

Just as every telephone on the planet needs it's own telephone number to receive calls from other telephones, every piece of equipment on the Internet needs it's own IP address so other equipment can find it.

Currently, most every piece of equipment has an IPv4 IP address.  "The people in charge" of handing our new IP addresses have informed "us" that they are pretty much completely out of IPv4 IP addresses.

Not to worry though because "they" have a whole bunch of the new IPv6 addresses.

 

3. Can't computer gear with a mix of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses find each other on the Internet?

Since I'm a business owner myself and not a computer geek I investigated the question by asking around among other business owners and by searching the Internet and came up with the following four answers, "Sure they can. Maybe they can. I don't know. Probably not."

From what I can tell, the switch from IPv4 to IPv6 in the Internet addressing world will be a lot like the change experienced by the business world 80 years ago when the public telephone system switched from operator connected calls, as in "Operator, connect me to PEnnsylvania 6- 5000" to direct dialing as in, "Now what was that darned new long telephone phone number for the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City? Oh, yeah, 212-736-5000".

After a while, businesses that refused to buy a fancy new telephone system that could direct dial other businesses probably stopped doing business as there were no longer telephone operators around to connect their calls."

 

4. Make sure all the new "anything" you buy for your office is IPv6 compatible

Who knows, maybe the year after next there will be a good reason to connect all your pencil sharpeners to the Internet. Well you won't be able to do that if the office pencil sharpeners you're buying today are not compatible with IPv6 addresing.

(Well maybe you could connect your old pencil sharpeners to the Internet two years from now but nothing else on the "new IPv6 Internet" would be able to find your stupid, old-fashioned pencil sharpeners.)

 

5. Inventory your business critical software applications

Are they running on IPv6 compatible equipment?  Using myself as an example, I still maintain a few websites using Microsoft Frontpage, a "critical software" application for me that has been completely abandoned by Microsoft.

I keep dragging the software from one Windows operationg system to the next - each time experiencing just a little more trouble. I had a heck of a time getting it to work on Windows Vista and then 7.0. (Too bad you can't buy Windows XP computers anymore.)

 

6. Let us talk to you about migrating more of your IT to "the cloud"

I don't personally believe that IPv6 was invented only as a way to induce business owners to buy all new computer gear that's IPv6 compatible, but the seemingly inevitable migration to the "new Internet" appears to require the purchase of new gear.

As is appropriate prior to any new business expenditure, ask yourself, "Do I really want to be in the business of building, upgrading and maintaining my own "computing plant"?  You use energy at your busines but you don't own and maintain a nuclear generator, right?

"The cloud" is working, ready to do business with your business, and is IPv6 compatible already.

 
7. But what if IPv6 is just a big conspiracy set upon us by the Democrats and the United Nations to take control of our minds and our freedoms?

As a recovering Democrat myself, the whole 1984 Orwellian nightware briefly flashed across my mind's eye when I thought about having an IPv6 address connecting everything I own to the Internet. (One guy I know actually covers the webcam on his laptop to keep President Obama from staring at him while he surfs the Internet.)

I'm sure all that's theoritically possible but I've got other, more pressing concerns at the moment like keeping the money coming in to pay for two kids in college.

If Mr. Obama or any of the other "jackbooted government thugs" (quote used without permission from Wayne LaPierre) the conspiracists would warn us about have nothing better to do than read my silly blogs as I write them, then we've all got much more to worry about then whether all the expensive computer gear we bought last year is IPv6 compatible.

 

8. Create an IPv6 audit & migration plan

In researching how big (or little) an iminent business problem this whole IPv6 thing is going to create for the average business owner, I ran across the IPv6 ACT NOW website at www.IPv6ActNow.org.  It's a nice website in that it takes all the doom and gloom out of the issue and helps business owners and IT managers see that all that's really needed is a simple audit, a call to your Internet services providers and a migration plan.

Call us when you're ready to do this. We'll share with you how our other business clients are allaying their IPv6 worries and we can introduce you to the vendors and consultants we trust who can all but guarantee that your office computer network is "good to go" for IPv6.

 

What Do My Smarter Business Associates Think?

Peter Radizeski, President of RAD-INFO INC, put this whole IPv6 thing in my brain by inviting me to the IPv6 webinar I previously referenced so I invited him to submit a quote to the question, "What do business owners and their consultants need to be doing about migrating to IPv6 in the next 12 months and what are the consequences if they don't?  Following is his answer.

“In the short term, 12 months, any new equipment being purchased should be IPv6 capable. PC’s, switches, IP phones, PBX, cell phones or any Internet-enabled device should be IPv6 capable so that you will not have to swap the gear out in the 3 year time frame that I see as when the pendulum will swing in the US to IPv6.” 

You can follow Peter by reading his blog at this link.

 

Interesting IPv6 Articles & Links

In an effort to prove to myself that the IPv6 thing was more than an urban legend, I ran across the following links. Check them out and draw your own conclusions.

World IPv6 Day  WikiPedia article

IPv6: Why Channel Partners Should Care June 2011

World IPv6 Test Day: A Week Later, Is IPv6 Any Further Ahead? June 2011

Google over IPv6   What Google says about IPv6 on their website

IPv6 ACT NOW  A website published by a non-profit Internet organization

Hewlett-Packard on IPv6   What one of the world's biggest gear makers has to say

In Anticipation of IPv6: Prepare, Don't Panic What Internet service provider Level 3 suggests

Comcast offers IPv6 in Michigan  August 2011

 

---

This OTMA028 blog post, headlines, keywords and HTML is copyright protected by Office Technology Marketing Association.

Only paid OTMA members have limited re-publication rights. Do not republish any content without prior written permission from OTMA. License this content for your blog or email newsletter.

Title: Will Your Office Computer Network Fail When the Internet Switches to IPv6 in 2012

Description: An understandable business person's description of the IPv4 to IPv6 challenge and a list of action items business owners and IT decision makers should take.

Categories: Business Phone Systems & Service, Cloud Computing (Hosting & Colocation), Data Network & Internet Access,  Why Buy From Telecom Agents

Keywords: public Internet, business, al gore, webinar, internet switch to ipv6, important, office computer network, communicate over the internet, 2012, mayan apocalypse, affect IT costs, ip, internet protocol, naming convention, ipv4, computer, router, switch, smart phone, tablet, security camera, ipv4, telephone, telephone number, ip address, office pencil sharpener, ipv6 compatible, critical software, new internet, migration plan, the cloud, conspiracy, 1984, george orwell, audit, peter radizeski, rad-info, ipv6 webinar, OTMA028, business owner, it decision maker, action items

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Vocal IP Networx to Exhibit at Channel Partners Conference & Expo

VOCAL IP NETWORX - nationwide facilities based ISP, IP Telephony and Cloud services provider headquartered in New York City, announced today that it will be exhibiting at the 2011 Fall Channel Partners Conference & Expo. The event will take place August 24-26, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago.

The Channel Partners Conference & Expo is the communications industry's only event exclusively for indirect sales partners focused on transforming their businesses to become the next-generation solutions providers. More than 2,000 participants are expected to attend the three-day education and networking event and the exhibit hall will feature more than 120 exhibitors. VOCAL IP NETWORX will be located at 1431.

Vocal IP Networx, a certified Microsoft Partner, announced today August 24^th, that it will be launching Vocal-UC, via Microsoft Lync.

Vocal IP Agents will be able to offer this advanced unified communications platform combined with Vocal’s existing Broadsoft IP Telephony soft-switch platform will provide a complete unified enterprise level communications experience for their end-users. Our customers will be able to connect, collaborate, control costs, improve productivity, support the mobile workforce, gain operational efficiencies, be more responsive, and maintain regulatory compliance.

Vocal UC will provide companies with complete enterprise voice features, powerful deployment & management tools and extensibility.

 Remember, as a Vocal IP Agent, you have access to Microsoft certified Sales Engineers when selling the new Vocal UC product. Our studies have shown, once a Vocal IP Sales Engineer is involved, our close ratios increase dramatically, so utilization these resources.

Vocal IP Networx Marketing Team will launch the new Vocal UC product with an incentive for all Vocal Agents. On top of the already aggressive Vocal IP compensation plan, Vocal IP will be offering “One Month’s MRC” for all new Vocal UC sales during the months August & September.  Please contact your Vocal IP Channel Manager for details  

About Vocal IP Networx –Vocal IP Networx is a nationwide facilities based ISP, IP Telephony and Cloud services provider headquartered in New York City. Vocal IP Networx operates 2 Super POPs, one in Newark NJ and the other residing in Las Vegas NV. Vocal’s network platform is fully redundant and geographically diverse. As well, Vocal’s infrastructure is fully managed 24/7/365.

Vocal has national service presence and is focused on multi-location organizations within the SMB & Enterprise markets. Vocal IP Networx is has a full suite of Cloud based products and services thatreduce IT management efforts and costs for its customers.  The Vocal’s technical teams are considered IT, IP Telephony, and Data networking experts. Vocal‘s Partner Program has been recognized and featured within the Telecommunications industry for over 7+ years now.

About Channel Partners Conference & Expo

The Channel Partners Conference & Expo (www.channelpartnersconference.com) is the communications industry’s only event exclusively for indirect sales organizations – agents, VARs, systems integrators, interconnects and consultants – focused on transforming their businesses to become converged solutions providers.

Produced by Channel Partners (www.channelpartnersonline.com), the event is produced twice annually in the spring and fall and features future-proofing advice from thought-leading speakers and how-to courses on best practices, technology and strategy. Topics range from hot technologies and new opportunities to partnering, diversification, sales tips and skills building.

 

Josh Redick Vocal IP VP/GM of Sales & Marketing 

 

Done-for-You Marketing: Customers Looking at Microsoft 365 or Google Apps to Move Their Apps to the Cloud? Share this info with them.

Posted 8/10/11 By Dan Baldwin
TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155

In an effort to help TA's 3,800 members create blog & email newsletter marketing content that they can use on their own end-user customers and prospects, I've created a new blog at BusinessPhoneNews.com that shows how a telecom agent should be speaking to their customers and prospects via a blog & email newsletter on topical items.

You're welcome to send the link to this information to your customers or you can license this "done-for-you marketing" content to put on your own blog or email newsletter.

Following is a blog post for customers & prospects that let's them know you're "an expert" at helping them get their business critical applications "into the cloud" by talking about the ongoing battle between Microosoft Office 365 and Google apps.

 

The blog post title is:

Google or Microsoft? Who Do You Trust With Your Business Productivity Cloud Applications?

The "KeyWords" for the blog post to get the search engines to find it are:

microsoft office 365, bpos, Business Productivity Online Suite, desktop computer, endpoint, laptop computer, smart phone, business productivity applications, email, document sharing, collaboration, hosted, in the cloud, IT infrastructure, google apps, gmail, software license investment, smaller businesses, start-up businesses, hosted VoIP cloud-based business phone system,in-house equipment-based business phone system, unified communications, UC applications, AT&T, NEC, Mitel, Toshiba, siemens, IBM, fud, fear, uncertainty, doubt, freedom, IT consultant, Google Apps vs. Microsoft 365, tyranny,

As you may know, embedding the keywords that your customers and prospects are searching for is the secret to getting Google and Bing to sending them to your blog post to learn that you're "the expert" that they've been looking for.

Following is the text of the blog post. You can also view it here.

As more and more businesses try to set up their employees to work from anywhere using any endpoint - desktop computer, laptop computer or smart phone - the need to have business productivity applications (email, document sharing, collaboration, etc.) hosted "in the cloud" becomes a more pressing IT need.

But which of the two "800 pound gorillas" in the business applications world (Microsoft and Google) are you going to trust and give your money to?

Most business tech pundits are fairly sure that Microsoft will win the war in the long run, especially with medium to large businesses that already have a substantial investment in Microsoft software licenses.

Many of the same pundits though give the nod to Google for smaller businesses, start-up businesses and other businesses that want to "do business" as opposed to create and maintain an expansive in-house IT infrastructure.

In many ways this Google versus Microsoft argument mirrors the "hosted VoIP" cloud-based business phone system versus the in-house equipment-based business phone system argument in philosophy.

Some businesses want the freedom of the modern "unified communications" or UC applications they can get from the new hosted VoIP phone systems while other businesses want the "imagined security" of sticking with a name they've trusted for years like NEC, Mitel, Siemens, Toshiba, etc.

 

How Does a Business Owner Decide?
Do you pursue freedom or avoid fear?

Basically it comes down to "avoidance of fear" or "pursuit of freedom". Every technology salesperson on the planet knows that the easiest way to sell an expensive brand name is to lead with "FUD" which stands for "fear, uncertainty and doubt".

Past tech giants IBM and AT&T were masters at controlling their customers into continued high cost purchases by peddling fear of new competitors. "No one ever got fired for buying IBM..."

At the bottom of this post you can watch a humorous video supposedly created by Microsoft that was shown to Microsoft partners at a Microsoft sales convention last month.

The video is a bit misleading as it compares Microsoft 365, a business application to Gmail, a consumer application. The business version of Gmail, Google Apps, does not serve ads unless the business owner wants ads served.

 

Do Some Reseach and Then Call Us for Advice

Clearly there are businesses happy with Google Apps and other businesses happy with Office 365 (and Microsoft BPOS "Business Productivity Online Suite", the predecessor to Microsoft 365). There are also many businesses that have switched from Microsoft to Google and vice-versa. But what's right for your company?

If you ask the IT consultant that sells you all your Microsoft licenses then you'll likely be told that only "crazy people" run their businesses using Google. If you ask owners of new or fast growing businesses you'll likely find peers that love Google and are glad to finally be free of Microsoft's software license tyranny.

We've done a bit a research for you already by finding the most balanced "Google Apps vs. Microsoft 365" articles recently published on the web.

Click on them and then give us a call. We'll share with you what our other clients are doing and then introduce you to business productivity cloud solution partners that we trust with our own clients. We work with and recommend both Microsoft and non-Microsoft professionals.

In any event we look forward to helping you achieve the workplace productivity enhancements that the cloud is both promising and delivering. Give us a call at 951-251-5155.

 

Microsoft 365 vs. Google Apps Articles Worth Reading

Google Apps vs. Microsoft BPOS/365 This article is published by a third competitor

Microsoft_Office_365_vs._Google_Apps_for_Business_Cloud_Showdown

Office_365_vs._Google_Docs_Showdown_(Feature_by_feature)

Office_365_- Not_for_Smaller_Businesses

 

Funny Microsoft 365 vs. Gmail/Google Apps Video

This "Microsoft video" seems to have first appeared on this blog.

 

***************************************************************************************************************
This OTMA018 blog post, headlines, keywords and HTML is copyright protected by Office Technology Marketing Association.

Only paid OTMA members have limited re-publication rights. Do not republish any content without prior written permission from OTMA. License this content for your blog or email newsletter.

Title: Google or Microsoft: Who Do You Trust With Your Business Productivity Cloud Applications?

Category: Cloud Computing, Why buy from Telecom Agents

Keywords: microsoft office 365, bpos, Business Productivity Online Suite, desktop computer, endpoint, laptop computer, smart phone, business productivity applications, email, document sharing, collaboration, hosted, in the cloud, IT infrastructure, google apps, gmail, software license investment, smaller businesses, start-up businesses, hosted VoIP cloud-based business phone system,in-house equipment-based business phone system, unified communications, UC applications, AT&T, NEC, Mitel, Toshiba, siemens, IBM, fud, fear, uncertainty, doubt, freedom, IT consultant, Google Apps vs. Microsoft 365, tyranny,

Files: HTML

 

AT&T Declares Independence from VARs and Integrators on July 4, 2011 (Who wants to fire you?)

Posted 5/17/11 By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email 

File this news story under "Why-am-I-not-surprised?"

In getting ready to attend the Managed and Hosted Video Summit in June, I've been researching the electronic security industry to find telecom agents, IT consultants, business phone systems vendors or other equipment VARs who are getting into or are already providing video surveillance or other sorts of loss prevention, security, asset protection solutions.

That's when I ran across this news story published in Security Systems News that discusses how AT&T purchased a security monitoring technology company named Xanboo and then decided to discontinue Xanboo's reseller program. 

Security Systems News quotes a March 31 letter from AT&T general attorney Meredith Mays as follows. (I added the bold red emphasis for dramatic flair).

Interested in Microsoft's Communications Solutions? Check out this June show...

Posted 5/11/11 By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email 

The 2011 Lync User Forum Summit highlights the rising importance of Microsoft Communications Solutions such as Lync Communications Server, Office365 and now Skype to businesses, organizations and institutions of all sizes.

According to organizer Tom Cross, Lync will be a viable PBX-replacement, telecommunications, contact center, IVR, call center, remote/branchoffice, telecommuter, mobile, video, presence, IM-instant messaging, conferencing solution to nearly every other aspect of business communications.

Speakers have been identified that can address present concerns, ongoing issues and the future outlook of Lync and other aspects of unified and contextual communications.

Click here to view more information about the event.

Cloud Computing Conference for End-Users in San Diego in September

Posted 5/11/11 By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email 

Interested in rubbing shoulders with C-levels and other senior IT managers of end-user businesses interested in migrating their applications to the cloud.

If so, you should consider attending and sponsoring this cloud conference in September that's being produced by the San Diego chapter of the AITP (Association of Information Technology Professionals) with Microsoft as a platinum sponsor. 

One of the key organizers is a fellow I met about two years ago named Marc Clark.  When I met Marc he was one of Qwest's top sales managers in San Diego. Today he's working with a cloud solution provider named ScaleMatrix. 

I spoke with Marc about the event today and he says the buzz is pretty good.  He also said I should take a look at a UK-based cloud services provider called On Relay, a mobile cloud exchange company that has a solution that will move business phone systems into cellular networks.

Wild stuff!

Following is the event flyer:

BYOB Hosted VoIP Shootout: Broadview's Unique Apps & Mitel Phones Have 50,000 Fans

Posted 5/6/11 By Dan Baldwin, Editor  951-251-5155 email

After a several month hiatus, Telecom Association has returned to our series of "Vendor Shootouts" where we have different leading industry vendors share why their specific solution is better than their competitors in a specific customer solution category.

The current shootout category? "Bring Your Own Broadband" or BYOB Hosted VoIP.

 

Why SMBs Love BYOB Hosted VoIP...

By and large, small and medium sized businesses are still run by their entrepreneurial founders who think every technology service, especially business phone systems, ought to be able to be delivered for less money over whatever Internet connection they already have.

Business owners say, "If I can get decent VoIP phone service at home or on my cell phone with practically any Internet connection, why won't that work in my small business office?"  

While the telecom agent "purist" will always steer their customers away from BYOB VoIP, many IT consultants, and computer equipment VARs are only too ready to have their clients give BYOB hosted VoIP a try.  

The trick is to try BYOB hosted VoIP with a business phone service provider that embraces BYOB with more than just lip service. Broadview Networks, based in New York but serving the entire country, is one of these providers that do "all flavors" of hosted VoIP including "direct connect" (with a DIA or dedicated Internet access connection) as well at MPLS.

 

Why 50,000 SMB's Choose Broadview Networks' Unique Hosted VoIP solutions

Broadview Networks, founded in 1996, with business customers in 47 states & DC, has $450m revenue, over 1100 employees, and provides business only phone systems and service as well as wide area data network, broadband Internet and managed services. 

Broadview's "Best in Class" invoice earns rave reviews from multi-location business customers needing their business phone bills formatted in unique ways with specialized reporting capabilities.

With over 60 dedicate channel support people supporting their independent telecom agents, channel partners, IT consultants and business phone systems equipment VARs, both Broadview's business customers and sales partners are taken care of.

Eight Ways Broadview's Hosted VoIP Offering is Unique

There are many hundreds of hosted VoIP business service providers in the marketplace but Broadview claims at least six unique points of value including:

1. Code Ownership - Broadview does not need to  buy licenses from anyone else like Broadsoft because Broadview owns their own hosted VoIP code.   This means that Broadview controls their own  "roadmap" as well as service upgrade roll-outs.  This means that Broadview's channel sales partners are not competing with every Broadsoft-clone reseller on the street who all basically have the same product with just a different logo.
   
   
2. End-User and Administrator Portal is Easy to Use -  The hosted VoIP phone user and administrator portal often "makes or breaks" user acceptance of the phone system. Soft savings from upgraded phone applications can't be achieved if users aren't using them.
   
   
3. Business-Grade Call Quailty - While BYOB can ever only be "best effort" because the time the call spends on the public Internet, with a large percentage of Broadview's 50,000 hosted VoIP seats being provisioned as BYOB, Broadview has earned the experience to make BYOB all that it's possible to be. To maximize BYOB Broadview conducts a site survey to measure Internet bandwidth capacity and conducts a comprehensive voice/data ratio analysis.
   
   
4. Nationwide Availability -  Most local business phone companies have a limited service area even after migrating their service offering to include hosted VoIP solutions. Broadview Networks has perfected their ability to provision services nation-wide for the benefit of multi-location businesses that want a single phone company.
   
   
5. Disaster Avoidance & Recovery Options - Businesses that absolutely need to be up and running 24-hours a day, 7-days a week no matter what enjoy the security that Broadview Networks multiple redundancy packages offer.
   
   
6. Call Path Pricing Model - By allowing for pricing by maximum simultaneous call paths, the Broadview price model is very appealing for business customers that may have many phones with low usage.
   
   
7. Carrier Clout - Unlike other hosted VoIP providers who only provide the phone service, Broadview provides phone service and the carrier connection the phone service rides on. For customers looking for "one throat to choke" this alone solves many future problems.
   
   
8. Mitel Phones - Because of Broadview's partnership with Mitel, a company with a rich history of phone systems design, Broadview's hosted VoIP phones are able to emulate many of the design features that business customers like in the old-fashioned classic key system phones like paging and park & retrieve. 

 

Watch Broadview's BYOB Shootout Video Webinar click here

Click here or the image above to watch Broadview's BYOB Shootout Webinar

 

Pros of Broadview's BYOB Hosted VoIP

For many small and medium-sized businesses, the following pros outweigh the cons of hosted VoIP:

1. Low Cost - The low cost of using BYOB VoIP comes from the ability to get a "two for one" out of a existing Internet connection a business already has to draw the dial tone for the phone system instead of standard phone lines.  The cost normally spent each month on phone lines goes straight back to business profit.
   
   
2. Great for Under 20 Seat Locations - Businesses with one or multiple locations that need less than 20 phones are easily accommodated by the capacity of hosted VoIP. All their existing simultaneous phone calls can usually squeeze onto their existing Internet connection.  Customers that expect to grow can easily try BYOB and then perhaps migrate to "direct connect" or MPLS hosted VoIP access options.
   
   
3. Widely Accepted for Small Businesses - Small businesses without constant or heavy data usage including many restaurants and other "quick serve" retail stores enjoy the convenience of getting their phone service through their under-utilized Internet connection.
   
   
4. Easily Reconfigurable - The "MACDs" or "moves, adds, changes or disconnection" of individual phone stations that are usually a high expense for most small businesses are easy with hosted VoIP. Instead of having to pay for a phone systems vendor service call, most phone station changes can be handled by the business owner or office manager in-house using the "administrator dashboard" phone portal.
   
   
5. No High Up-Front Charges - A hosted VoIP phone system avoids the normal "phone equipment in the closet" costs but the phones on the desks must still be acquired. Broadview allows customers to procure the desk phones as part of the monthly charges so no high up-front costs prevent businesses from getting the phones they need.
   
   
6. Design Emulates Classic Key System Designs - Because of Broadview's partnership with Mitel, a company with a rich history of phone systems design, Broadview's hosted VoIP phones are able to emulate many of the design features that business customers like in the old-fashioned classic key system phones like paging and park & retrieve. 
   
   
7. Phone Decision Seperate from Bandwidth Decision -  With BYOB hosted VoIP solutions, the decision about what phone vendor you're going to use is separate from the decision about which broadband Internet provider you're going to use.  This separating allows small businesses to change either their phone provider or their Internet provider without one decision adversely affecting the other.

 

Cons of Broadview's BYOB Hosted VoIP

The reason all businesses have not adapted BYOB hosted VoIP is because of the following cons:

1. No Control of Voice Quality - Because the individual voice packets that make up the VoIP phone call go over the public Internet without any "packet control", latency and/or packet loss can cause less than perfect audio quality.
   
   
2. No Service Level Agreement or SLA - The BYOB phone companies provide "best effort only" service meaning the customer can complain about less than optimal call quality but there may be little recourse for the customer if the carrier can't fix the problem.

 

Hot Broadview BYOB Hosted VoIP Applications

1. Employee Phone Independence - Phones can be shared between different shift employees as phone emulates programming of which ever user is logged into the phone. Individual users are no longer tied to a particular phone or a particular location.  The USB virtual or "softphone" emulates the phone on any computer with a headset so the employee doesn't even need an expensive desk phone while traveling - or ever for some.
   
   
2. Avoid Printing Cell Phone Numbers in Business Cards - Mobile "twinning" ensures no call is ever missed by simultaneously ringing both desk and cell phones at the same time.  This negates the need for sales employees giving out their cell phone numbers to customers which can be quite problematic if the sales person quits and goes to work for a competitor.
   
   
3. Disaster Avoidance & Recovery - User and administrator portals allow for the near instant redirecting of any or all incoming business phone calls in the event of an emergency to alternate business locations or employee cells phones working from home.

 

The Hosted VoIP Opportunity with Broadview Networks

Annual sales will grow to $5.4 billion for hosted IP phone services in 2015 which represents a 33% annual growth through 2015 as reported by Frost & Sullivan in July 2010.

Broadview has put a total of 50,000 seats in service from 2006 through 2010 with their strong BYOB hosted offering providing most of the growth.

Broadview's OfficeSuite provides a business phone system, a calling plan, an online portal with secure multi-site data networking and high-speed Internet access. The calling plan includes 150,000 minutes per site - the equivalent of unlimited calling. 

The Broadview hosted VoIP solution uses a combination of Mitel phones, a USB softphone, standard 24-key phone, executive LCD phone & conference unit phone. 

Broadview offers "bring your own broadband" hosted VoIP options as well as "direct connect" via DIA (dedicated Internet access) and the super stable and secure MPLS option. 

 

Broadview's Full Business Services Suite Includes:

1. Hosted VoIP (OfficeSuite, DynamicIP, SIP trunking) 
   
   
2. Voice (local, regional & long distance, dedicated & switched access, conferencing, toll-free, mobile, voicemail)
   
   
3. Wide Area Data/ Broadband Interent (dedicated Internet access, Ethernet, MPLS, Colocation, data continuity, disaster recovery)
   
   
4. Hardware & Systems (Routers, Switches, Firewalls)
   
   
5. Security (Data backup, firewalls/network security, virtual private networks, e-mail security, content filtering)  
   
   
6. Professional Services (IT project outsourcing, network design & implementation, network integration, wiring & structured cabling, custom solutions)

 

Broadview Hosted VoIP Feature Sets Include...

USB "virtual" soft phone, click-to-dial, paging, integrated messaging, hunt group, broadcast group, ACD, contact center features, call queuing, skill-based routing, customizable hold treatments, multi-site agents, configurable timeouts/escalations, whisper announcements, confirm call acceptance, at-home and mobile agent support, call recording, agent evaluation tools,fixed mobile convergence, OfficeSuite over Switched Ethernet, call recording, visual voicemail, voicemail Groups.

 

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BROADVIEW'S AGENT PROGRAM

Who's Selling Video Surveillance to Your Multi-Location Customers?

Posted 4/21/11 By Dan Baldwin, Editor  951-251-5155 email

Last September I interviewed Charlie Pagliazzo and then wrote this blog post about Granite Telecom's new "Security as a Service" solution they rolled out as Granite Guard.  

At the time I did the interview, the opportunity seemed pretty good for telecom agents and business phone system interconnects since agents are interested in selling most any business service in the "communications technology" realm (especially an opportunity to sell an ADT-like service to businesses) and many interconnects are already installing the onsite structured cabling needed to connect security end-ponts (video cameras, motion detectors, fire alarms, etc) to their  monitoring servers and then to alarm lines or some other broadband Internet connection.

While Granite Guard's solution seems to focus on all parts of the "security as a service" solution including monitoring, fire, intrusion, access control and closed circuit television (CCTV) or digital video surveillance, some other vendors like Envysion are now coming on the market exclusively promoting hosted and "managed video as a service" or MVaaS.

Click here to view a business end-user blog post I've witten about

Lessons for Telecom Agents and VARs from the UC Summit in La Jolla, California

By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, Posted 3/28/11

I'm at the UC Summit spending a couple days rubbing shoulders with the "Big Iron" vendors (NEC, Avaya, Siemens, etc.) who specialize in migrating their Fortune 1000 customers from old TDM solutions to the new world of "Unified Communications".  I attended this event last year as well.

The invited attendees are the consultants and systems integrators who call on the mid-market and enterprise customers who most all need every solution under the sun for different call centers.  Next to no agents here but there are many interconnects, the NEC vendors and the like who network services agents often try to network with.

Smart people I know who are here include Dave Gilbert of SimpleSignal and Steve Handelman of ATEL Communications. Everyone here has something in common with networks services agents and vendors though in that we're all looking to figure out how to live off of being the vendor that "sells the business application" that makes the customer's  business process work.

All of us whether we're living off selling network service or equipment solutions now, are all trying to be the first and favorite "cloud applications" provider for our best customers next year.

Following are the highlights of what I've learned so far:

ADVODA "Agent of the Year" for SIP/Hosted VoIP Provider SimpleSignal

By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, Posted 3/12/11

I met Ron Dunworth and Hilary Fox of ADVODA back in June 2009 on a trip to Colorado when they invited me to tour their office. I met them again later that year when they invited me to come to Denver and cover their 2nd Annual "Agent Day". (Click here to see a video review.) 

The two things that impressed me about ADVODA back in 2009 was the scope of their office operations (they had about 20 people all furiously managing mid-level to enterprise customers) and they had a real focus about finding the right SIP/hosted VoIP partner for their larger customers.

I remember back in 2009 Ron thought he'd found the perfect hosted VoIP partner and had even introduced the VoIP partner to a couple resellers he was working with.

I caught up with Ron again six months ago at the Washington DC Channel Partners show at the the SimpleSignal "Koolaid Party" and learned that

New Vendor Gives Telecom Agents Control over Their Client's Multiple SIP Carriers

Posted 3/9/11 By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director

This month TA welcomes a new vendor, Network Intelligence ("NI") based in California that specializes not in providing network services but in allowing telecom agents, channel partners and IT consultants with the ability to control their customer's PRI and SIP trunk carriers through SiPSuite control panel.

The first two questions TA's 3,800 members usually want to know about new TA vendors is "Who's the prospective customer" and "What's their pain"?

NI's SiPSuite is full of tools designed to help anyone juggling multiple carriers, but for telecom master agents and channel partners, the primary

1. Target Prospect:  Businesses with multiple voice carriers and circuits, and the 

2. Target Pain: Customer's inability to control which traffic goes to which carrier

This month NI recorded a video webinar that all TA members can view by clicking here.

To get a feel for whether or not you need to meet with NI at the upcoming Channel Partners show or after, view the following four email blasts that NI and TA created to educate TA members about their need for NI's solutions.

#1: Need SIP Carrier Traffic Control? Meet Network Intelligence at Channel Partners  Does Your Customer Need to Least Cost Route or Aggregate their SIP Carriers? Meet Network Intelligence

#2: Need to Cherry Pick some SIP Carriers? Meet Network Intelligence at Channel Partners  Does Your Customer Need to Least Cost Route or Aggregate their SIP Carriers? Meet Network Intelligence

#3: SIP Sales Suffering from the "Take or Pay" Delay? Meet Network Intelligence at Channel Partners  Is Your customer locked in a long-term SIP contract? Meet Network Intelligence to learn how to do business with your customers anyway

#4: Sell SIP to Call Centers? Watch this Network Intelligence video now!  Network Intelligence changes the rules about who controls what between the customer and the SIP carrier. Watch this video to learn the new rules.

Click here or the image below to watch the video overview of their SiPConnect solution for telecom master agents and channel partners.

 
Click here or the image above to watch the video overview of their SiPConnect solution for telecom master agents and channel partners.

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TA thanks the following quality comment authors:  None yet, be the first!

Telesphere Shares their SIP/Hosted VoIP Competitive Advantages at San Diego Master Agent Lunch & Learn (Watch Video)

Posted 3/9/11 By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director

I had the opportuity last month to attend and video tape a "Lunch and Learn" put on by Telesphere's Jeff Savage and Joe Testa for the San Diego based master agency ATEL Communications hosted by Andrew Cohen.

The best part of the presentation was the half-dozen case studies that were presented that really showcased where Telesphere had positioned itself as a fierce competitor in the SIP trunk and hosted VoIP space.

If you're a telecom agent, channel partner or IT consultant that specializes in multi-location business customers and their business phone sytems and local phone services you should really watch this video tape presentation of Telesphere's partner program so you can see how it compares to the ones you know or if you find yourself competing against them.

Click here or the image below to watch the video at TA's new TELEPEDIA.org site.

Click here or the image above to watch the video at TA's new TELEPEDIA.org site.

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 TA thanks the following quality comment authors:  None yet, be the first!

Vegas Dance Card: Who to Meet with at the Channel Partners Conference

By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director
951-251-5155 email, Posted 3/1/11

If you're going to the Channel Partners Conference in Vegas this month, check out the following from your fellow TA members and vendors.  Check VegasDanceCard.com  daily for updates through the end of the show.  Scroll below to learn how to get listed.

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Here's the "Best of Show" from TA's Vendors & Members!

 

Training

"Grow" Annual Agent Conference by Telarus, Saturday, March 13, 1:30 pm to 7pm - Learn about new technology, new rewards and best agent practices. Dinner sponsored by Vocal IP. Register here...

 

Energy Institute: The Channel's Next Frontier by WTG, Sunday, March 13, 9 am -WTG/Energent CEO Vince Bradley will detail the differences between energy & telecom.

 

Trends and Changes on the Infrastructure Horizon by Qwest, Sunday, March 13, 2:30 pm to 3:20 pm

 

MPLS University by MegaPath, Monday, March 14, 9 am to Noon RSVP

 

Enterprise Cloud Migration Case Study, by Smoothstone, Monday, March 14, 2pm.  Hear a real-life story from a customer who has made the migration to a cloud-based enterprise communications.   Register...

 

 

Parties

Marketing: Getting Your Video & Audio on Your Smart Phone, Blog & the Web

By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email

Many products are now on the market that make it just as simple as possible to get video into your marketing properties like your website, blog, email & social media pages. Recently I found one that's helped me get video off the web entirely and onto my smartphone (a Blackberry Storm) but I'm sure it would work for an iPhone or iPad as well.

What's the point? Video sells things better than words. Below is  a video that one of Dave Gilbert's employees made recently to help explain how Simple Signal's unified communications tools and hosted applications make any business phone system work better.

It's great when you're talking to a sales prospect and they can watch your video on your blog but what about when you're at a business lunch or meeting in the hall?  Show the video on your smartphone. By putting the video on your phone you can show it whenever you need to without the need for Internet access.

Below the video is a list of the various tools I'm using as a telecom agent and channel partner to get video on the web and my smartphone.

 

Sample Video Edited on Camtasia & Hosted by ScreenCast
click here to download to play it on your smartphone

 

Magic DVD Ripper - For $35 you can rip video from a DVD directly to the M4V format which is what most smartphones need. The nice thing about the M4V format is that it can also be played in most web video players like Windows Media Player. (MP4 is the current standard video format for YouTube & such but regular Mp4 videos won't play on most smartphones).

 

AVS Video Editor - For $55 this software lets you convert video from any format to almost any other format. This is useful if you've got old WMV, AVI or FLV video you need to convert to M4v.

 

ScreenCast - This is where you should host all your video in addition to YouTube.  (YouTube is good for search but many people can't watch any YouTube hosted video while at work due to their company's firewall restrictions.)  ScreenCast is only $10 a month, doesn't compress your your video like YouTube, allows for download of the original video file & provides very clean, ad free embed code so you can play the video from any site.  The video above is hosted on ScreenCast.

 

Camtasia - Possibly the only video editing software you'll ever need at just $300. I added the green lettering and the end credit to the above video using Camtasia. Video editing software is primarily neded to resize the video frame so it's the right size for whatever web page it will play from. The software also compresses or makes the original video file small enough to "stream" off the web (start playing instantly) instead of making the viewed download a large video file before it will play.

 

Windows Movie Maker - If you're not ready to buy Camtasia then Microsoft's free Windows Movie Maker ("WMM") software is your next best choice.  WMM comes free with every computer on the planet that uses the Windows operating system. To find it on your computer click "Start,  All Programs, Windows Movie Maker". Even though (I think) it only produces video in Microsoft's proprietary WMV format, this format is pretty universal in that almost all computers can view it with Windows Media Player.  

WMM is also convenient for turning audio recordings into a "video" you can upload to YouTube or Facebook. (At church I help my pastor record his sermons to a WMA audio file using a Olympus WS-400S I bought on sale for $50 at Radio Shack.  I drop the audio into WMM, pull in a photo to add the "visual part" and then save it as a video that I can then upload directly to YouTube or Facebook.)

Below is a sample video I made for my church using WMM and the voice recorder that I uploaded to Facebook & YouTube. Anytime any of your people do an important business lecture you can easily & quickly publish it just as easily.

 

Sample Video Created from an Audio File

Audacity Sound Editor - If you're trying to record a phone interview connect your headset to your computer and use audacity to create your audio file and then edit it.  If you can't get your existing headset/amplifier to do the trick, try the Plantronics MX-10 which is what I use.

 

PodSnack - If you can figure out how to get a MP3 or some other audio recording from your phone and you don't care about turning it into a video so you can publish to Facebook or YouTube, use PodSnack to generate a simple audio player with the needed "embed code" to then play it on your blog. Below is the same audio sermon from my church above "burned" to a simple audio player. (I had to convert the WMA file to MP3 using the Windows Audio Converter that comes with Windows Media Player because PodSnack only accepts MP3.)

 

 

Questions? Call 951-251-5155 or email 

San Diego: Top Area Agents Meet at Telesphere/ATEL Lunch & Learn

By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email

While everyone likes to go to the big national tradeshows to get out of town, the serious action for several years has been happening at the local metro lunch & learns where the telecom vendors get personal one-on-one time with an areas biggest voice and data telecom agents, channel partners, applications brokers and IT consultants.

Next Tuesday, February 22nd, all that action's going to be happening at ATEL Communications when they play host to Telesphere.  

If you're a voice & data "Big Dog" in San Diego, make sure you RSVP for this event and then go visit with Telesphere next Tuesday in the company of your peers.

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Here's some of what you'll learn as submitted by Telesphere's Joe Testa:

Overview of how Telesphere  provides unique voice and data services over  a private IP network. We are building the nation’s largest hosted PBX business phone service for unified communications. We'll also cover our financial overview as well as how we integrate the office phone, computer and mobile devices utilizing FMC or fixed mobile convergence.  Cloud communications enables wireline and wireless convergence.  One of the  largest providers of voice services over the Broadsoft Platform, in which Broadsoft is the world leader in hosted IP platforms and solutions.

Trends and other industry information, hosted IP services market share, hosted IP revenue. Some key features, Speak to dial, fax to email, dial from webpage, call center solutions, hosted call recording.

Whats in it for you, the telecom agent, channel partner & IT consultant by partnering with ATEL Communications and Telesphere.. Diversification of your financial portfolio, residual income on both the network and phone equipment. Telesphere has less than a 1% churn and an average life of a customer is 8 plus years. Residuals paid for the lifetime of a customer. 

RSVP for this event One attendee will win an iPad!

MegaPath: MPLS/Security Workshop at ITEXPO East - No Charge, All Attendees Welcome.

Free Training on Secure Networking at ITEXPO in Miami

These sessions of MPLS University are targeted to IT and business professionals to learn more about secure networking including connectivity and managed security options, regulatory requirements, and security standards. 

Join us for two FREE training sessions at the Internet Telephony Conference and Expo (ITEXPO). Learn how to improve the utilization and security of your network.

Thursday, February 3, 2011
Room A106
Miami Beach Convention Center
Miami Beach, FL

Course Descriptions
2:00 pm - 2:50 pm
Navigating the Seas of Managed Security Services: Cloud vs Premises vs Hybrid 
View full description ...

3:00 pm - 3:50 pm
Meeting Compliance Requirements with Security-as-a-Service: Risk, Security & Compliance
View full description...

Who Should Attend

• IT Pros and Managers
• Channel Partners

These sessions were developed with end-users in mind. Partners will find these sessions especially helpful in their work with current and prospective customers.

Questions? Contact our Event Manager  
Visit us in Booth 706 in the Expo Hall 

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