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Three Technologies You Need In 2009

This article is more than 10 years old.

For many small businesses, survival is the goal for 2009. In these difficult times, the notion of spending on novel networking products or services is a hard sell at best. Yet ignoring network infrastructure can cripple a business.

Which technologies to embrace in the new year? The kind that can provide clear-cut, bottom-line savings. Here are three likely candidates:

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Unified Communications Deployments

Recently, VoIP technology has proved to be reliable and scalable, so a growing number of organizations now feel comfortable deploying it. Lower cost is its main attraction. Traditionally, deploying and maintaining a PBX or a key system was an arduous task; These devices were based on old hardware and used proprietary programming interfaces. Rather than empowering users to make simple changes, such as changing their extensions, such chores fell to overburdened IT departments.

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VoIP systems cut costs in a number of ways. In many cases, their per extension prices are lower than those of PBXs or key systems. Also, VoIP switches rely on commodity hardware, such as PCs or Linux systems, so they are easy to configure and troubleshoot. Rather than closed architectures, these devices rely on standard interfaces. In fact, one area that has recently received a lot of attention is the use of open source VoIP systems. In addition, VoIP devices also have simple, intuitive user interfaces, so employees can often make simple system configuration changes.

Voice systems have typically had long life cycles, five to seven years, so as PBX and key systems come to the end of their lives, a growing number of small and midsize businesses have been replacing them with VoIP switches. Now that many organizations have deployed VoIP switches, they want to take advantage of them. Because they have an IP foundation, these systems are able to support integrated data, voice and video applications. Unified communications packages integrate services such as voicemail, e-mail and instant messaging into a single system. Consequently, it becomes likely that employees will receive important messages in a timely manner. Web and video conferencing are other applications riding the surge in VoIP deployments.

With vendors fighting for survival, pricing for these products has been dropping, and increasingly, they have been packaged with other components and applications. Thus it has become simpler for small and midsize companies to justify their deployment.

New Mobility Applications

Many firms have implemented wireless technology, such as 3G cellular data networks and wi-fi, so their employees now operate in a flexible workplace where they can access information at just about any time and from just about any place. With this new infrastructure in place, companies are looking to layer applications on top and maximize use of their wireless networks.

Increasingly, companies are running VoIP over wireless connections. Dual-mode cellphones enable users to continue their conversations as they move from an outside cellular service to an internal wi-fi network. The bundling means employees no longer have to carry a desktop phone and a cellphone, so companies can reduce their telecommunications equipment costs. Maintenance also becomes simpler, because there are fewer devices to oversee.

New mobile applications are emerging. Real-time location services enable companies to track items, such as their inventory, via wireless connections. Here, organizations are using wireless connections to manage a wide range of devices. Health care providers can monitor use of portable X-ray machines, and retailers can track equipment or supplies in their warehouses. In 2009, more of these novel applications are expected to move from vendors' research labs into small and midsize businesses.

Low-priced Smartphones

The high end of the cellphone market has attracted the most attention because it provides vendors with the highest profit margins. Companies such as Nokia Microsoft Palm, and Research in Motion , have made hefty profits selling smartphones priced at $500 to $700. Moving forward, however, vendors will be hard pressed to maintain such high prices.

One reason is the intense competition in the smartphone space. The traditional stalwarts have recently been joined by marketing marvels Apple and Google . As a result, the smartphone market recently became quite turbulent, with suppliers announcing new devices and new capabilities every few months.

With the iPhone now working its way into mainstream acceptance and Google finally taking the wraps off Android, the pace of innovation should cool down, and vendors will find themselves competing more on price. Already, price erosion is evident at the bottom of the market, where the dividing lines between standard cellphones and smartphones have blurred. By the end of 2009, small and midsize businesses will find themselves with more functional cellphones at low price tags.

Given the global economic turmoil, businesses and vendors will be conservative moving forward into the new year. Rather than focusing on dramatic new technologies with potential but also some possible flaws, the networking industry's focus will shift to maximizing use of technologies that have recently started to gain acceptance.

Paul Korzeniowski is a Sudbury, Mass.-based freelance writer who has been writing covering networking issues for two decades.

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