For our friends in Omaha

Today we had a conference call with a customer of ours. The purpose of the call was to meet with their managers and discuss the general state of the industry and give them some insights on what the future might hold. Below are some of the links that were discussed on that call, for the benefit of those who participated. I've included links to some of the topics and articles we did not get to as well. They tend to be a bit more business-focused than residential.

You might also want to look at our podcast series. They can serve as a free information resource for you and/or your staff. PodSnacks is a daily audio series that explains one telecommunications term per day. There is even an email link where people can request terms to be explained. tHAWT is a weekly news summary that reviews trends and activities in the telecommunications space.

If anyone wants to continue the discussion from today, you can post comments to this blog post, or you can simply email Michel (m.gilbert@hill.com) or Mark (m.steinberg@hill.com).

Articles

Qwest Links

Cool Stuff to Watch For

Some Business-Related Thoughts

  • SMBs are Hot
    • Yankee Group’s 2006 U.S. SMB IT Infrastructure Survey (Oct. 2006) found that the top concern for 2007 is security, closely followed by backup and restore, and application and data availability
    • Gartner: “In 2007 we’ll see more intrusion prevention, and more interest in ID and access management products” (NAC)
      The SMB workforce has become much more distributed, mobile
    • High-speed IP and virtual private network links will allow firms to back up critical data and replicate critical applications on virtualized servers at remote locations
    • They need more help / collaboration than any other segment
      • Limited staff, increasingly complex solutions
  • Medical markets, specifically
  • 2007 IT Spending Predictions
    • Small companies
      • Almost half (47 percent) expect their IT budgets to increase
      • Of those, almost half (43 percent) expect their budgets to grow by more than 20 percent
      • The top three technology spending priorities in order from the top: Security, Web services, and wireless
    • Midsize companies
      • Half (50 percent) expect their IT budgets to increase
      • Of those, about a third (37 percent) expect their IT budgets to increase by more than 20 percent
      • The top three technology spending priorities in order from the top: Security, wireless, and Web services
Published Friday, June 08, 2007 9:59 AM by mgilbert
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