CRN head to head: “What will be the biggest trends in networking for 2008?"

Mathew Dickerson, senior network consultant.

Managers want more efficient ways to monitor and track what staff are doing on their PC regarding a range of websites. This will be further complicated by existing ‘regular’ sites gradually adding ‘social’ features.

To gain greater productivity from their IT infrastructure, progressive clients are choosing to give their staff secondary displays. This is an area that will become almost standard in a business that heavily relies on IT to improve productivity. Look at multi-display video cards and multi-display mounting devices as an area that clients will want to discuss further.

Not so long ago, the amount of data that clients stored doubled about every 18 months. We now find that with the advent of scanning paperwork, electronic filing, email usage and archiving and generally greater use of technology, clients now double their storage requirements every 12 months. This means that clients who never considered storage outside their server storage are looking at NAS and SAN devices as viable alternatives.

Clients now understand acronyms such as VoIP and DRP. I believe the SMB market is embracing VoIP solutions – in pieces or in complete solutions – like never before. The savings are too good to ignore and the quality is slowly improving. The average SMB client now realises keeping a system up and running is more productive to their business so are prepared to spend an appropriate amount on a disaster recovery solution. Ensure you have a viable offering in this space.