• May 01

    Get Ready for the Cloud

    By Mark Bradberry, Senior Consultant

    It’s an all-too-familiar scene for the IT director:  Your executives ask what you’re doing about the latest technology craze to splash on the market.  Your finance department wonders when you can start saving money with it.  Providers are knocking at the door to persuade you to try...

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  • Apr 10

    A Quality Network Will Make Cloud Strategies Rain Success

    By Tim Naramore, CTO, Masergy

    The cloud is spreading across all industries at a torrid pace; offering cost-cutting abilities and the flexibility to help companies of all sizes enhance their businesses. IDC says cloud spending will top $36 billion in 2012, at a growth rate that is four times the overall IT industry average. As...

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  • Mar 13

    Innovation in Communications - Are we really more productive?

    By Paul Shiman, Chief Marketing Officer

    Recently, our leadership team held an internal one-day innovation summit with the goal of uncovering new service offerings, identifying industry best practices and determining our own productivity and efficiency gains. In discussing our own efficiency, and obstacles that day-to-day tasks present to...

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  • Feb 21

    TEM Consolidation: What does it mean to you?

    By Scott Fogle, Co-Founder

    For those of us in the industry for the last 10+ years, the rate of change in the Telecom Expense Management industry is exciting.  The strongest companies are growing and either putting the weaker companies out of business or buying them for a discounted value of their remaining...

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  • Jan 30

    Is the Cloud a Security Concern for Your Business?

    By Mac McClanahan, Senior Consultant

    Whether a business chooses a private, public, or hybrid cloud for their computing strategy, it is crucial to carefully assess business and technology synergies before taking that step. Where enterprises begin their journey depends on where they are now and the process can generally be broken down...

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  • Jan 16

    How did your wireless costs jump from 5% to 50% of your total telecom budget?

    By Scott Fogle, Co-Founder

    Today’s mobile professionals are demanding a variety of tools to support their business communications requirements. Many are even travelling and working with up to 5 different mobile devices!   They also could be spending up to $135 per month on mobile data, not including device costs...

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  • Oct 04

    Is Your Network Diverse?

    By AJ Leone, VP of Sales, Southeast Region

    The term diversity, as it pertains to data networks, is often used and often misunderstood.  Many IT managers know that having some form of diversity in their network is good thing.  But what is diversity in your network and why is it important? Having diversity in your network quite...

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  • Sep 22

    Is Your Network Traffic as Congested as the LA 405 Freeway?

    By Jon Stroup, VP of Sales and Business Development

    An enterprise data network has traffic issues similar to the LA 405 freeway. There are rush hours, accidents, rubber necking, special events, population changes, and, occasionally natural disasters.  From increased voice, data and video applications your networks performance can be...

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  • Sep 06

    Below the Radar - Conferencing

    By Jason Wile, Consultant

    When was the last time your organization reviewed your conferencing services, costs, and needs?  In a time when everyone is feeling the pressure to reduce costs and improve efficiency, here’s a simple and effective way to add value to your organization while improving the bottom line in more...

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  • Aug 24

    Telecom Invoice Processing - There is a Better Way

    By Jon Stroup, VP of Sales and Business Development

    Every company processes an avalanche of telecom invoices each month.   Usually, there is a cursory technical or AP review and the bill is paid early enough to avoid the late fee.  Or there may be a team of specialists spending multiple days each month conducting the reviews. ...

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  • Aug 09

    Is Your Data Center Next to the Coat Closet?

    By Jon Stroup, VP of Sales and Business Development

    Is your Data Center next to the Coat Closet or in Class A/B Office Space? So, your data center is either in your storage area, coat closet or just down the hall from your office.  That’s convenient and reassuring, but it’s also vulnerable. Traditionally, as small to mid-sized companies have...

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  • Jul 26

    Consumerization of the Mobile Space is Forcing Corporate Policies to Change

    By Marco Kuysten, Managing Consultant

    A few weeks ago a client told us they were pretty successful in limiting the number of iPhones connecting to their network. Company policy did not allow for iPhones and only a few exceptions had been made. After reviewing some log files, we concluded over 2,500 iPhones are connecting to their...

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  • Jul 25

    Advocate Networks Celebrates Our 10 Year Anniversary

    By Scott Fogle, Co-Founder

    10 Years in business, hard to believe!  When we started the company in the summer of 2001, who knew the twists and turns we would face ahead.  Events including the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001, amazing growth and change of the telecom industry, shocking fraud and failure at...

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  • Jul 14

    Telecom Billing Issues in the Spotlight on Capitol Hill

    By Paul Shiman, Chief Marketing Officer

    Cramming is a Telecom problem even a key Senate Chairman, Jay Rockefeller, agrees! Yesterday, in a hearing at the capital, a commerce committee found that AT&T, Verizon and Qwest made $650 million over the last five years through this common practice. So, what is cramming? It’s not last minute...

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  • Jul 12

    Data Center Build vs. Buy - What to Consider?

    By Paul Shiman, Chief Marketing Officer

    I recently attended a panel discussion in Chicago organized by the local chapter of 7x24 exchange. This organization is the leading knowledge exchange for those who design, build, use, and maintain mission-critical enterprise information infrastructures. The event, led by Tom Kutz from Affiliated...

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  • Jun 28

    Will the Private Data Center Disappear?

    By Scott Fogle, Co-Founder

    Given all the recent press and hype around cloud computing, a well-read Internet surfer would think that private data centers will all but disappear as everything a CIO needs will be available in the Cloud.  Sure, the large data center users such as Amazon, Google, and the federal government...

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  • Jun 23

    Is RIM Dead?

    By Scott Fogle, Co-founder

    With recent stock price woes and many industry pundits starting to play "Taps", the folks at RIM continue to face challenges and an uncertain future. We all know it can happen. Look at Novell, Nokia, Informix, Tandy, Digital Equipment and some would say "Microsoft". All are or were undisputed...

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  • May 20

    Why do Telecom Expense Management Projects Fail?

    By Tim Wise, Co-Founder

    I was recently asked by a client “Why do TEM projects fail and not meet our management‘s expectations. This question is asked more than you may think, especially after the decision has been made, implemented and the consultants have left the building.  There is a significant amount of...

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  • Mar 29

    How will the AT&T/T-Mobile Merger affect Sourcing?

    By Rob Stewart, Managing Consultant

    From a wireless communications viewpoint this announced merger will decrease the competition and potentially raise price levels, reduce service levels and support. The FCC and DOJ will be scrutinizing this deal over the next year. The challenge that they must weigh is that customers  will have...

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  • Mar 20

    Gartner lowers forecasts on PC sales in 2012...

    By Paul Shiman, Chief Marketing Officer

    So according to Gartner (read article) the shipment of PC's will be significantly lower in the next 2 years due to the increase in consumer purchases of tablets as an alternative to laptops and PC's. In fact tablets are expected to be almost 41% of all purchases in China. Wow, this can only...

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  • Mar 14

    The Road to Best in Class Telecommunications Expense Management

    By Gerry Carson, Managing Consultant

    Are you a communications service provider? From Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLEC) to Multiple System Operators (MSO) to Wireless Providers and Conferencing Companies, you may ask: What is this road and where is my company today? In the beginning most companies have primarily paper...

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  • Mar 05

    How do you move to the Cloud?

    By Scott Fogle, Co-Founder

    I recently met with an enterprise IT infrastructure director that asked me “How do I move more IT services to the Cloud?”  We had a very interesting, wide ranging discussion on his current environment, how his company provides IT services to 5,000+ global employees.  We touched on email,...

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  • Feb 18

    What is driving all the data center space in Santa Clara, California?

    By Scott Fogle, Co-President, Advocate Networks, LLC

    Have you noticed recently the continuous announcements about new data centers popping up in Santa Clara? In the last 12 months, Digital Realty Trust, CoreSite, QTS, Vantage, Terremark, and others have announced new data center space in the market. What do you think is driving this density of data...

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  • Jan 14

    It's here, Verizon iPhone...Will there be a stampede???

    By Scott Fogle, Co-President, Advocate Networks, LLC

    You are the Network Manager for a large enterprise.  You have endured 5+ years of your end-user’s demanding all the latest wireless devices, and constant complaints on network coverage, battery life, download speed and synchronization issues.  Your company was an earlier adopter of the...

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  • Dec 01

    Global Expansion - "It's a Small, Small World"

    By Tim Wise, Co-Founder & Co-President, Advocate Networks, LLC

    2010 has been another significant growth year for Advocate Networks - 64% growth in revenue; recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in the United States; and expanded our geographic presence in New York City, Washington, DC, Houston, Texas and the Carolinas....

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  • Jul 23

    Droid vs. iPhone (and now iPad)

    By Scott Fogle, Co-President, Advocate Networks, LLC

    Yes, I am an early user of an iPad 3G. I'm in the business and justify it as "testing" the latest mobile productivity tool. I use the iPad as a semi-notebook computer replacement. After returning from a road trip to visit clients and prospects, just carrying the iPad catches people's attention and...

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