It's not all about technology

[dhalliwell]

Lately, I have heard some of the telephony/UC vendors start to talk about "it is not just about technology, it's about what you do with technology".  Since this is something I have been preaching for years, I am wondering if other consultants out there are also hearing that message.  It took me be surprise when I heard it, and some of the people saying it looked so uncomfortable doing it.

[manojb]

I completely agree with the sentiment.

I think the origin of this is from the hetrogenous environments we are working on. From a customer's point of view,say if they have deployed Cisco, MSFT, IBM and SAP in their environment, they are using these products effectively , each in its own domain . The question then becomes -how best can they leverage all of them 'together' or look for areas of optimization or even better - Mashups, collaboration tools etc. With upgrades and new feature functionality being added in products, IT firms are facing this challenge on 'use' of technology rather than having a particular technology. A very classic example is the latest buzz around cloud computing and virtualization. Great technology but more than that- an excellent use case !

[jmaudlin]

Diane - I could agree more - its about using technology to solve business problems.  You have to dig in and learn about your customers business before you can truly provide a valuable solution.  If you don't, your just pushing boxes.  They are allot harder to sell.