The industry is keen on providing low-end solutions to the SMBs, but what is lacking is the approach to do more than meet loosely fit basic needs for the cheapest price. In the fall of 2005 and into early 2006, after testing ADTRAN's IAD: 1224 STR PoE, we discovered benefits by reducing the number of appliances and using ADTRAN's gear with leading power supply efficiency (power factor). This simplified our network, saved rack space, and performance improved, netting less gear to manage. Convergence In The Closet is an overlooked benefit that many SMBs remain unaware of. Upfront, we did pay more, but in the long term we gained even more than had we stuck with "point products."In 2006, we started moving subscription client software away from the desktop and into the cloud and Internet pipe, and reliance upon it changed. We dumped our "legacy" IP-PBX for a Hybrid solution. Then in 2007 we found our firewall appliance too choked to handle the bandwidth of FIOS and the user experience didn't change from DSL moving over to FIOS. The firewall UTM appliance was the culprit. This meant we needed a large enterprise firewall to fill the needs of an SMB; an added investment we decided not to make. Instead, we simply turned on the firewall in the ADTRAN IAD and immediately user experience lifted to the expectations that FIOS delivers on. No more firewall licensing costs either. We also decided to use the cellular network for backup, but our primary intention was to avoid cell charges by installing a GSM gateway.
Later we struggled with WiFi and moved to a temporary solution from Belkin for our small office building. Though the early Pre-n was very cool, it became another appliance sitting in a rack on a shelf that required attention. In late 2008 I had to have that IP-PBX from Panasonic. Next on my list were SIP trunks, but to get there I knew we had to move out of our IAD, to get VQM and onboard WiFi. The timing was perfect since we just finished building out our new offices. We placed the existing IAD in our new lab, added some fiber to connect back to our utility room and purchased a new ADTRAN 1335 WiFi PoE IAD for our offices. The enhanced firmware included Voice Quality Monitoring (VQM), and a built in WiFi solution proved exceptional. Throughout all these projects, the key component behind them is the ADTRAN IAD/AOS that I've written about.
Lately, I've been reading Brand Loyalty: Psychology of Preference by Bill Nissim and he discusses: Brand Molecules by Dr. Clayton Christensen, The Innovator's Solution defined as-- He also states that according to Jack Trout in Big Brands, Big Trouble, "Marketing battles take place in the mind of a consumer or prospect. That's where you win. That's where you lose." Cisco lost ground in the value of their brand. Nissim's articles really struck home when he revealed the McDonald's Brand Molecule.
Next, I asked Rob Snyder, Director of Product Marketing of ADTRAN, "What does the ADTRAN Brand Molecule look like?"
According to the 2010 Infonetics 1Q/2010 Enterprise Routers and WAN Optimization report, the appliances market share for ADTRAN grew 15% QoQ, Cisco shrank 13% and Juniper's share also shrank by nearly 8%.
For me, NoJitter is a breeding ground of ideas and actions because the blogs and responses formulate ideas and even actions within the industry. With word pictures like Rob's above, SMBs have the opportunity to move beyond meeting basic needs at the lowest possible cost (McDonald's Molecule). Large enterprise I think is lulled into believing the highest cost model is the safest choice and however you end up tossing around what you believe you need to ask yourselves of any vendor, does it add up and then determine whether your adopted brand contributes to your business results or mostly to your vendor's marketing efforts. Later, I'll report back on the new tools and benefits of ADTRAN's latest.
