WELCOME TO PHONE+ MAGAZINE!

We have extended a subscription invitation to more than 41,000 data VARs like you over the past 60 days. We are glad that you have decided to join us to learn about the opportunity of providing bundled voice and data products and services to your customers.

This is the perfect time for you to investigate expanding your business to include the sale, service and support of voice. For some of you, this may not be completely new. You may be a partner with Cisco Systems Inc., and already may be helping your clients with some VoIP solutions. If so, thats great. Many companies are served well by Call Manager. But not all; even Cisco admits this and has partnered with carriers to bring other options to the table. So can you.

There are many premise-based software solutions so-called IP PBXs that can replace traditional phone systems. Increasingly, many of these systems also are running off wireless LANs and will incorporate dual-mode handsets. Your familiarity with customer LANs and standards-based software gives you a leg up in delivering these solutions to end users from SOHOs to large enterprises.

If you are reading this, then you have some inkling of the demand. Maybe youve started to get requests curious inquiries or formal RFPs from your clients. Forty-two percent of small businesses say that they currently use or plan to use some form of IP telephony by summer 2006, while for medium businesses, it is even higher at 61 percent, according to research from AMI-Partners.

Thats just the opportunity afforded by VoIP. Managed services and WAN internetworking are even bigger revenue-generators over the long term.

While convergence is collapsing voice and data networks, simplifying inventories and pricing, it is complicating the implementation and management of the networks to the extent that companies like yours are going to be the go-to guys for many enduser businesses, their carriers and even some channel partners that need a data guy to help make things work.

Thats what PHONE+ is about, helping you identify and connect with these revenue-generating partnerships. In between issues, please visit our Web site at www.phoneplusmag.com and our partner portal, Converged Solutions Provider Network, at www.csp-network.com. We even sponsor a certification program to help you get the hang of the voice environment. Check it out at www.cspcertified.com.

Please dont hesitate to contact me with questions or feedback. You can e-mail me at [email protected].

MIKE SAXBY
GROUP PUBLISHER
[email protected], ext. 1666