Sweeping Generalizations Let's take a look at two broad product categories: network management and remote-access outsourcing.

Network management has been relegated by the enterprise into the same category as taxes, and remote-access outsourcing is now the leading prospect for ISP profitability. Network management has become a necessary part of the enterprise toolkit--necessary in the same way as data archiving, and about as exciting. Network management has concentrated on the implementation of features without giving priority to time savings and operational efficiency.

Remote access packs the halls at network seminars because it migrates responsibility for operations to an outsource vendor, thereby allowing internal staffers to apply their talents to other problems. ISPs selling remote access pitch only one point: freeing resources. What a concept! The question is not whether to give a man a fish or teach him how to fish, but rather, how to give him the time to fish.

Timing Is Everything I've been asked by vendors on numerous occasions, "How can we get our product on a corporation's short list?" Everyone knows that this is no trivial task. In a scenario where a vendor's product is No. 4 on a short list of three, it can be difficult to impossible for the vendor to break through. Judging by all the vendor skyscrapers at network trade shows, the conventional wisdom is to slap e-commerce or voice-over-IP on your product and it will sell. In my humble opinion, the answer du jour really isn't electronic commerce or voice-over-IP, but streamlining, head-count elimination and operational elegance.

Just so you don't think that I'm asking for all this so that your network staff can play Myst, John McConnell, author and network consultant, recently conducted a survey of 150 companies with an average of 9,500 employees. One of the questions McConnell posed was: "Given current staff commitments and activity, what tasks are neglected?" The respondents rated their No. 1 priority a tie between capacity and strategic planning, followed by optimization, process improvements and evaluation of new technologies.

Perhaps on the enterprise side our RFPs should ask for number of resources freed as opposed to blatantly assuming that every new product has a corresponding increase in workload. Only in that way will vendors look beyond units shipped to our costs within the enterprise resulting from product implementations.

Even in the largest, most well-funded organizations, network architects and technical planners have been drafted into operational tasks on an ongoing basis. Organizations both small and large have created an insatiable demand for professional services firms just to address this one issue: staffing the workload peaks that would otherwise negatively impact operations.

The one flaw in addressing the problem with a purely professional services model is that frankly, professional services firms have no operational experience within their management ranks and no revenue mandate linked to operational performance. Therefore, at the end of even the most successful professional services engagements, the client organization often winds up with the same operational impact: increased head count or increased workload on remaining staff.

The growth of the Internet and the emergence of enterprise applications based on Internet technology have created a flux in the channel relationship for many small and midsized companies. The prime influencer of many network equipment sales has become the ISP instead of the traditional VAR (value-added reseller). From what standpoint do ISPs look at products? Operational efficiency.

Additionally, the revenue squeeze based on falling access margins has provided incentive for ISPs to expand beyond traditional bandwidth services and customer-access products into higher-value-add products and services. The imperative for ISPs to do more with less from an operational standpoint is a given.

The only thing missing from the ISP model to make it the ascendant partner for the enterprise is a professional services aspect. No other solution combines the customer intimacy, technology match, operational responsibility and entrepreneurial offensive. Resulting solutions would provide the organization with the most elusive of all intangible benefits, more time. The question is: Can ISPs invest and staff up to pursue these opportunities while simultaneously implementing VPN, remote access and traditional Web services? Only time will tell.

Brian Walsh is the founder of bwalsh.com in Portland, Ore., a networking and communications consulting firm specializing in Internet and client/server product strategies, development and testing. He can be reached at www.bwalsh.com.