7 Most Important IT Trends in 2011 | Trend #7

Justin Lofton - VP of Engineering

As we move into the new year, there are clear trends that I have been monitoring in the IT space. I wanted to share with you the 7 most important IT trends

in 2011. This is obviously my personal opinion. I’m using my 12+ years in the industry and my non-stop focus on seeing where the IT market is headed so I can help my customers make better decisions when adopting technology.

Rather than giving you all 7 trends in one post, I want to talk about each trend in detail so you can fully understand the trend and why I’ve decided to add it to my list this year.

We’ll start with trend #7 first and then move up to the most important of the 7 trends over the next few weeks.

Trend #7 – The Carrier App Grab

At this stage in the carrier services game the market has reconsolidated to just a few big players (AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink-Qwest). There are certainly other carriers that are still strong players and have great offerings but there are far fewer choices than 5 years ago when everybody and their mother was selling carrier services due to deregulation.

Most of the leased line business is a pure commodity now and the carriers have been working very hard to create solutions for customers that would allow them to move up the OSI model where there is far more margin and less commoditization.

This trend is certainly not brand new for this year as the carriers have been trying to offer non-carrier related services for a handful of years with mostly dismal results in sales and their ability to deliver on their promises to customers.

Here you can see that the carriers are not all that interested in selling circuits any more. Below are screenshots of their main business websites:

AT&T

They want you to know that they don’t really want to sell commodity pipes. They want you to buy those pipes with other services.

VERIZON

As applications themselves become commoditized to some degree I believe that the carriers can now be a solid alternative to maintaining those applications internally or having other 3rd parties maintain them. This also applies to infrastructure as well. More on that in a bit…

Here are a list of services that the carriers are offering and are worth considering in 2011 as you make your IT decisions:

Hosting – As more and more businesses look to push their core applications out of HQ, they are looking for a secure environment to put their gear and apps. The big boys aren’t cheap but they do have kick-ass facilities and they are well connected to the biggest backbones in the world. They can really shine here if you clearly understand their level of support, what they will and won’t do in various situations, etc. Basically, don’t believe your carrier sales rep when he keeps nodding his head, yes, when you ask, “do you do this?”, “do you do that?”. We have saved a lot of IT asses over the years by helping customers review contracts and fully understand deliverables and support from carriers before signing the dotted line.

VoIP - I know, crazy right? We have seen years of carriers trying to pull this off. And 9 times out of 10 they fell flat on their face. Today, things are different. Yes, the deployment stage can be a pain in the you-know-what sometimes but once these services are in place most customers are very happy that they let someone else worry about it. It also allowed them to move it to an OP-X instead of having the big CAP-X usually associated with phone system deployment. You definitely want to consider carrier provided VoIP if you are ready to deploy VoIP in your environment.

Mobile - This is a BIG one! Because mobile services are such an important part of productivity and are now more tied to data than ever with blackberries, iPhones etc its critical that you consider this during your IT decisions. The carriers can give you some smokin’ deals on your MPLS and Internet connections if you are bundling services like mobile, VoIP and hosting. Even if the company doesn’t pay for the employees mobile phones but does provide cell phone reimbursements there are ways to save a lot of money for both the employee and the employer. Definitely look into this during any decissions that involve your contract renewals or the addition of other services.

VPN Services (sometimes) – Over the years the big boys have offered various forms of VPN services. They have got this nailed down pretty well. If you have people all over the world or a large mobile staff with a small IT staff, then looking to the carriers for VPN services is a viable option. In most cases, our customers handle this internally with our support but the carriers can sometimes offer something that is more unique to your needs and they do a pretty good job of delivering what they promise.

Ethernet Services (I know, it’s not an app) – Here is where we are having HUGE success with our customers. You can now get 99% of your circuits via Ethernet hand-off from the carrier. These services are usually less expensive on a recurring basis and they also allow you to use lower cost hardware to terminate it. You only need your basic router or firewall now to deploy them. The reason for this is that it also lowers the carriers costs to maintain and deploy the circuit so its a win-win (this is rare in the carrier world). Even if you already have a full MPLS or other circuits deployed you can usually save a bundle by re-terminating them as Ethernet hand-offs. Check it out…

That’s about all I can give you on the carrier services trend. You will see them positioning themselves to try and do far more than provide you with pipes from here on out.