2010 is said to be the year of the chronically unemployed, but the telecommunications arena is still putting entrepreneurs, consultants, and college graduates to work in interesting ways. But telecom is strong competition for the United States Navy’s love for acronyms, and it may involve a crash course in the industry jargon. A few friends of Techistan online magazine share with us their knowledge, Peter Radizeski, telecom specialist with Rad-Info, and also Jim Safran, CEO of GreenAppX.

Peter Radizeski shares in his TMCnet blog …

“Agent is a member of the Indirect Channel. Also called a channel partner. An agent is an independent sales person for the carrier or vendor. Agents get paid a commission for closed sales. Agents may or may not work through a Master Agent. A Master Agent gets a big contract with a carrier, so that other agents can sell off it and get paid. Today, Master Agencies need to be more like the back-office partner for independent agents, so that the indie agent can just sell and stay in front of customers, without having to jump through a thousand hoops to place a single MIS order. (Do you hear me Ma Bell?)

VAR’s are value-added resellers. Originally, this meant folks who built computer systems. Now, it means the company that you buy your computer and network hardware from, who also do maintenance, installation, and other value-added services, like back-up, hosting and more.

Managed Services are anything that you outsource like computer maintenance, router monitoring, IDS/firewall monitoring. MSP World at ITEXPO in October in LA will showcase some of the most progressive MSP’s in North America. This show is in run by MSPAlliance. (MSPMentor writes about everything MSP. The VAR Guy may say VAR, but the blog leans towards Managed Services, probably because they are both owned by the same media company).

SI’s are systems integrators. In the days when Novell was tops (and believe me nothing could stand up to Novell 3.12 server), SI’s were the guys that would take various databases and systems and tie it all together. So if you were migrating from IBM DB2 to MySQL and adding web capability, you would get an SI. I guess today, they are web dev folks or consultants or something else because I haven’t seen anyone call themselves an SI in a while.

In the CLEC world, a reseller is a company like Access2Go or PNG. These companies just rebill circuits from other carriers. PNG used to be Qwest’s biggest wholesale customer and Access2Go resells AT&T.  GTT is being called an VNO – virtual network operator – but it just rebills circuits.

Tech Data, Ingram Micro, CDW, ScanSource, NETX are distributors of hardware. You want Cisco gear, you can’t get it directly from Cisco. You have to buy it through a distributor. The distributor is the one-stop shop for the build-out: phones, switches, cables, widgets, router, IAD, licenses, etc.  VARs and MSP’s (and MCP’s) all buy from distributors.

Agent is a member of the Indirect Channel. Also called a channel partner. An agent is an independent sales person for the carrier or vendor. Agents get paid a commission for closed sales. Agents may or may not work through a Master Agent. A Master Agent gets a big contract with a carrier, so that other agents can sell off it and get paid. Today, Master Agencies need to be more like the back-office partner for independent agents, so that the indie agent can just sell and stay in front of customers, without having to jump through a thousand hoops to place a single MIS order. (Do you hear me Ma Bell?)

VAR’s are value-added resellers. Originally, this meant folks who built computer systems. Now, it means the company that you buy your computer and network hardware from, who also do maintenance, installation, and other value-added services, like back-up, hosting and more.

Managed Services are anything that you outsource like computer maintenance, router monitoring, IDS/firewall monitoring. MSP World at ITEXPO in October in LA will showcase some of the most progressive MSP’s in North America. This show is in run by MSPAlliance. (MSPMentor writes about everything MSP. The VAR Guy may say VAR, but the blog leans towards Managed Services, probably because they are both owned by the same media company).

SI’s are systems integrators. In the days when Novell was tops (and believe me nothing could stand up to Novell 3.12 server), SI’s were the guys that would take various databases and systems and tie it all together. So if you were migrating from IBM DB2 to MySQL and adding web capability, you would get an SI. I guess today, they are web dev folks or consultants or something else because I haven’t seen anyone call themselves an SI in a while.

In the CLEC world, a reseller is a company like Access2Go or PNG. These companies just rebill circuits from other carriers. PNG used to be Qwest’s biggest wholesale customer and Access2Go resells AT&T.  GTT is being called an VNO – virtual network operator – but it just rebills circuits.

Tech Data, Ingram Micro, CDW, ScanSource, NETX are distributors of hardware. You want Cisco gear, you can’t get it directly from Cisco. You have to buy it through a distributor. The distributor is the one-stop shop for the build-out: phones, switches, cables, widgets, router, IAD, licenses, etc.  VARs and MSP’s (and MCP’s) all buy from distributors. ”

In a recent podcast interview with Jim Safran of GreenAppX, he shares what different types of distribution and reseller partners entail. Listen to the complete podcast between Suzanne Bowen of DIDX and Jim Safran of GreenAppX.   

“We are focused on many channels such as value-added resellers, system integrators… these are the individuals that will take products like Cisco, Microsoft and Sun Micro and will craft together an architect and network designed to meet a customer’s needs,” Jim Safran informs.

“Given their intimate relationship with the customer, they are a natural channel for us.  Why are they interested in GreenAppX? Currently their business model has been per billing or per project basis. Mostly VARs and system integrators (SIs) are looking for sustainable, recurring revenue. That is why a SAAS platform is so perfect them. They have the ability to be involved with the customer’s applications and a view inside the local area network, but for those who cannot afford to buy their own server and for those that because of budgetary restraints … this gives those partners the opportunity to still be involved with their customer’s business,” Jim Safran continues.

Further Jim Safran shares, “Another natural channel for us is telecom master agent. They are the ones who have exclusive agreements with the carriers. They take on commitments for revenue and volume.  In return the carriers give them a level of commissions that it valuable for them to go out and recruit sub-agents.”

Think of a master agent as the warehouse, and sub-agents as the retail. Sub-agents have the contact with the end-users. They use the contracts and connections of the master agent to not only secure good pricing but also support and more importantly, high commission pay-outs. In return, they are able to go out and sell a product without any commitment to the upstream carrier,” Jim Safran states.

Learn more about VoIP, SIP, and telecom acronyms at The SIP School. Contact Jim Safran of GreenAppX and Peter Radizeski of Rad-Info to start your own new career in 2010! Meet with them at ITEXPO West October 4-6, 2010. Peter will be a moderator for some panel discussions and Jim’s company GreenAppX invites you to their ITEXPO exhibit.