Enterprise allusions

Every January, the ComNet Expo serves as a wake-up call for the telecom industry, and the message is always the same: The holidays are over, the trade show year has begun and the enterprise business is calling. Last week at the 2001 edition of the Washington, D.C., show, the enterprise business was calling, as usual, and carriers came out to pay their respects to enterprise users, as usual.

ComNet has become notable as a forum in which carriers exhibit and announce new enterprise services, but over the years I have come to realize these announcements never have much strategic vision attached to them. We never seem to get a sense that anybody knows where the enterprise business is going. Certainly, carriers come out and talk about how important the enterprise market is to them. They give props to Fortune 1000 companies. They talk about how their new collections of services present a cohesive, comprehensive and seamless applications package to users.

However, there are never any grand visions behind these announcements. A market that is perceived to be worth somewhere around $120 billion should inspire some grand visions. There are responses to where the market has been, rather than perceptions as to where it is going. A few years ago, no one foresaw the emergence of application service providers, the sharp turn toward IT outsourcing among enterprises, the transition of Ethernet technology to a carrier service or the popular ascension of the wireless LAN. Now, service providers are trying to process all of these trends and figure out if they really know enough about them to build service strategies around them.

This broad collection of trends is what gave birth to a legion of so-called enterprise carriers. What does it take to be a great enterprise carrier? Within the last couple of years, it seemed that many start-up service providers, namely CLECs, knew what it took. They were going to focus on the enterprise networks and users in a way that incumbent carriers never could. Enterprise would be their niche, and they would meet every need for service, equipment, IT expertise and otherwise. After a couple of years of hearing this, however, it now seems investors are no longer interested in a potentially rich niche - they want multiple active revenue channels.

So with the downfall and redirection of some of those enterprise carriers, we are back to where we started: a lot of big companies sustaining the enterprise market without really paying much attention to where it is going.

Having said this, there may be a faint glimmer of hope that some carriers may finally begin to understand the enterprise market, pursue it with a contemplated, organized strategic vision, and make it their own. The glimmer of hope lies in carriers like Verizon, which do not appear to be merely throwing solutions at the market but seem ready to pursue enterprise business with single-minded, well-integrated strategies and organizations.

The Verizon Enterprise Solutions Group is a young organization in name, though it represents the best products and services of Bell Atlantic and GTE, the two companies that merged to form Verizon. However, these assets seem to be combined with a dose of strategic vision.

Eduardo Menasce, president of Enterprise Solutions at Verizon, says the group is committed to growing beyond its regional roots to become a national and global name in the enterprise business. That is not something most telcos have ever tried to do. They usually leave that territory to companies like EDS and IBM.

There is no guarantee that Menasce and Verizon ESG can be the perfect enterprise carrier - the company so far is not looking to have much relationship with ASPs. However, Menasce's group is exciting because it is a clear example of the importance of the enterprise business to this big telco. It is a pledge to create a visionary enterprise carrier, rather than just another telco following the same old routine.