The video focuses on high intensity tech training, highlighting the transition to unified service-based models and the importance of simplifying complexity for tech advisors. Speakers Graeme Scott and Vincent DiCicco discuss the challenges faced by tech advisors in a rapidly changing environment, emphasizing the growing preference for subscription-based services over traditional models. The introduction of Network as a Service (NaaS) is presented as a key trend, with significant growth projected in the coming years. Meter’s innovative approach to local area networking and proactive support is showcased, demonstrating the advantages of a subscription model. The discussion concludes with insights on adapting to new data generation trends and the importance of understanding client needs.
Transcript is auto-generated.
It is time for today’s high intensity tech training. The shift away from fragmented capital intensive infrastructure toward unified service based models that deliver cloud like simplicity across all IT domains.
Today, we learn about the trends driving this shift and how full stack service models simplify complexity, improve agility, and open new opportunities for Telarus tech advisors.
Glad to welcome back today to our Tuesday
call, Telarus VP of Advanced Networking and Mobility. The one and only, Graeme Scott, joined this week by Vincent DiCicco, head of the TSD channels at meter. Graeme, it’s great to have you back and especially to discuss the dilemma today’s advisors face in assisting their clients in finding the connectivity and infrastructure solutions. This is a rapidly changing environment.
Yeah. I know for sure, Doug. It’s always you know, we all love change. Right?
When things change, I think, customers love it.
We love it. Everybody loves it. Of course, I’m kidding. Nobody likes change. It is a constant, and this is definitely one of the areas where we are seeing that.
Now before I dive into the content today, I just wanna give a shout out on the on the Ascend we’re doing tomorrow. Would love to see everybody here on the call join us for that. Should be a lot of fun. Got some really cool new trends and statistics about in the mobility space that I’m gonna share, and some great, great, you know, trends and things that you can take advantage of to make some money selling mobility IoT and network.
So I hope to see you that. The registration link is in the chat. You get back to back Graeme. So, what could be better than that?
Right?
Nothing. There you go.
Alright. Let’s move on, Chandler. Let’s go ahead and jump into the next slide. So as Doug alluded to, there’s a lot of stuff going on in the network space.
And one of those trends is what we call network as a service or NaaS. And I’ve talked about that before on some previous calls, but, essentially, it’s that shift from CapEx to OpEx that we’re seeing across pretty much the industry
at large. I mean, almost all of the areas, cloud, cyber, all these things are moving to these subscription based models, and so network is no different. What’s really changed is the way that customers want to consume their network and infrastructure.
Right? They see themselves paying subscription fees for everything else and going, hey. Why can’t I do that over here? Why do I gotta pay upfront cost for equipment, for gear, for switches, routers, whatever you wanna call it, when I can pay it on a subscription base, everywhere else?
So we’ve got a great new supplier that we’re gonna bring on in just a few minutes to talk through how that works within the Telarus portfolio and what kinda options we got. But at first, of course, just wanna talk about some industry trends at large and why I’m so excited about this and really trying to get, you know, our adviser community
on board with what’s going on. So, again, as I said, what’s happening is that there’s this service first mindset. Right?
All of your customers are looking at all of their services that they consume and saying, hey. I wanna pay for this on a subscription base. I don’t wanna pay for it upfront. Makes it easier on finance, all these kinds of things.
Right? In addition to that, we’re seeing this convergence between the edge and the cloud and all of these ecosystems. We’ve got these swim lanes that we’ve had for years. Everything’s kinda converging and going together.
One bleeds into another, bleeds into another. And then we’re also seeing a lot of operational automation.
I’ve done a few a session on AI ops previously. So if that’s something that interests you, you can go and check that out. But it’s a big part of what’s driving some of these transitions. So, Chandler, if you wanna move to the next slide for me.
So what’s going on in the market? Okay? NaaS growth is about twenty six percent compound annual growth rate year over year. So projected to be about a hundred and fifteen billion dollar market by twenty thirty two.
It’s about twenty four billion now. So pretty significant growth. And in the infrastructure as a service space, tremendous, momentum there as well. Hundred and fifty plus billion here in twenty twenty five.
Lots going on. So by by the end of this year, seventy five percent of enterprise generated data will be created and processed outside centralized data centers. So a lot of customers are having to adapt to that. As I mentioned earlier, we’re also seeing this convergence between security and network where majority of enterprises are starting to adopt things like zero trust and SaaS, which we’ve talked a lot about on these on these, HIT calls.
And then, of course, we’re moving to a new wireless, standard here. Wi Fi
six and seven gives a whole bunch of new demands on the infrastructure that’s in place causing updates. People need to spend money to update to meet these changes, and that requires another traditional model, OPEX. Well, customers are starting to say, I don’t wanna pay that way.
I wanna be able to do this on a subscription base. So let’s move on to the next slide here.
So you can see this guy is very frustrated with what’s going on. I know a lot of our tech advisers feel the same way. Right? You guys are feeling a lot of pressure from your clients to deliver the same type of simplicity they have with the cloud and other infrastructures while navigating this ecosystem that is very fragmented.
Right? And, traditionally, infrastructure, switches, routers, those kind of things have not been the domain of tech advisers, particularly in the TSD space. Right? We tend to focus more on the services.
Well, this convergence is bringing us into a lot of these conversations.
So we’re seeing that, and I think that is a positive for us. But, you know, doing things the old way can really lead to deployment delays, long lead times, and all those kind of things. And businesses need the agility that they get from this sort of new way to consume services. So let’s go ahead and move to, the next slide there, Chandler.
So let’s talk about what these are. Okay? We’re gonna do a little kind of a comparison between what we would do traditionally and the NaaS model. So under traditional network working, right, we had a large upfront hardware investment.
Companies would have to spend a lot of money on hardware and infrastructure to put their network in place. There was a lot of different vendors and ecosystems to manage. I mean, maybe you had Fortinet or Cisco, Meraki, or whoever it was, but you had to make sure that everything you were putting in place
was, would work with the would comply with what you had in there and and would be compatible. So you had a lot of, different difference there and a lot of things you had to manage.
Maintenance was very, very challenging as well, very reactive. A lot of IT teams spent a lot of time on maintenance and, therefore, were not able to spend time on proactive measures and things like that. And then, of course, different portals, different management tools, very, very, very, cumbersome to manage all of those different things. So let’s move over to the NaaS model, talk about what’s involved there.
But not not back on that same slide. Sorry, Shannell. Yep. The NaaS model there, again, we’re moving to a subscription based utility service.
Okay? So we’re taking all these OPEX things. We’re taking all these costs that you’re paying upfront, moving it to a subscription. The ability to increase or decrease bandwidth at, any given time and the ability to swap out and change infrastructure at any time.
In addition, there’s all sorts of other products and services that come with the NaaS model that you can layer on, things from security, cloud. It’s basically bringing all of these elements together in one ecosystem under the NaaS model. Great thing there is oftentimes you also have singer single vendor accountability. Right?
If there’s an issue with something, you don’t have to worry about, you know, the finger pointing, the salute. Who’s the guy that I gotta call to fix this? It’s one bat to pack, hand to shake, however you wanna call it. One of the beauties of this also, a centralized dashboard with proactive monitoring and maintenance.
So these are the kind of things that customers are demanding, and we’ve got the ability to meet those now. So, Chandler, next slide.
So, again, I talked a little bit about this power of convergence. Okay? So what’s going on there? We’ve got this, this, you know, sort of everything’s coming together. You’ve got the NaaS Foundation is giving you the ability to pull in these, infrastructure as a service, which gives you the ability to scale, compute, and storage resources quickly. And it’s all part of this massive digital transformation that is happening within your customers. Next slide, Chandler.
So why? What’s the big advantage of this? Right? We need a you know, there’s a big strategic advantage
in why customers are doing this.
Well, faster deployment, right, allow it reduces the time to production for new sites to about sixty percent, lowers the cost of ownership through the automation by by about forty percent, and eighty five percent less firefighting by IT teams, meaning that there’s a decrease in reactive IT operations, and they are able to move to being more proactive and more transformational for the business. So, finance teams love, of course, that predictable OPEX budget planning, and, it eliminates a lot of the vendor management and overhead. And this, I think, is one of the bigger things that we tend to miss.
Future proof. Right? The ability to just swap out gear as it ages
or whatever without having to spend a whole bunch of OPEX is very, very attractive to our customers. And, of course, when you’ve got the latest gear, you’re enhancing your security posture.
You’ve got all sorts of, those proactive measures put in place to, protect the network and protect the infrastructure.
Next slide, Chandler.
Alright. So what do you now have to do as an adviser? Right? Well, this this, you know, goal of swapping from just basically selling circuits, selling bandwidth, to selling a full solution is what you’re engaging here.
You’re sort of changing the conversation around, hey. Just Bandwidth speeds and feeds, need a connection from here to there, to a holistic conversation around the entire strategy that they have with their network. What’s it doing? What’s it supporting?
Where is it going? Right? So the first thing we need to do when we’re leading this transformation is assess that current state. Okay?
What is going on today? What’s going on with the network today? And then from there, we go, okay. Where do you guys wanna be five years from now, two years from now, a year from now?
We want to figure out what that future state is so that we can help them get there and execute that transformation.
So next slide here, Chandler.
Alright. Right now, you know, obviously, this is great. Right? You guys are like, hey. Cool story, bro.
This is really, interesting to know. How do I do this, Graeme? How do I take these trends, what’s going on in the industry, and put it into practice? Well, joining me on the call here is our good friend Vincent from METR.
METR is a relatively new partner to the portfolio. Vincent, what’s
it been? A couple couple months only. Right?
Actually, it was right before Telarus Summit. So I think we’re heading into week four here.
Okay. So even sooner than I thought. But, we’ve been talking to these guys for a while. We’re really excited about what they do and the model they bring. And, Vincent, a lot of the stuff you guys are putting in place drives at exactly what I was just talking about as far as network as a service and infrastructure as a service. Why don’t you talk a little bit about what you guys are seeing in the industry and how you guys have been very successful helping businesses make this transformation.
Yeah. Hundred percent.
To your point earlier, Graeme, a lot of organizations have been forced since local area network became a service that they needed for their business to procure it in that traditional CapEx model.
And for the most part, for the last forty years, the boxes have gotten higher speeds and feeds. But that experience, not only as a partner, but as a customer, has, for the most part, just remained the same. And so there is this massive opportunity now and this shift away from what would be considered traditional local area network, experience for
not only partners and customers to procure it in a as a service model, which is natural, right, considering everything else in that tech stack has already kinda made that move, whether it’s cloud phone systems, whether it’s cybersecurity.
The customers are demanding a better experience for their critical infrastructure and local area network outside of the WAN coming into the building is extremely critical to the business because all of the other solutions to your point, Graeme, are touching that local area network and are dependent on that. And so METR, back in two thousand and fifteen, looked at that kind of traditional networking space and said, hey. Everything else is making this as a service move. How do we improve what’s been going on for the last forty years in the local area network space?
And so what you see on the screen here was the first step in creating an overall package and solution that can address those areas of improvement. And it really starts with the hardware and the software. So everything on this screen from the power distribution unit through the switches, security appliance, the indoor and outdoor access points, in addition to the network operating system, is made, manufactured, and written by meters. So the first piece of that puzzle is vertical integration across the entire stack, and that’s what we’re providing here, from a hardware and software perspective.
Yeah. I know. And I and I think, again, it’s it’s always you know, we hear these trends. We see what’s going on, and and we hear the screens from the customers like, hey.
We wanna move in this direction. Right? And I think some of the larger players in the network, they’re getting there. They’re starting to move there.
Lumen, for example, has got, you know, a fairly comprehensive NaaS offering. And I know the other ones are really responding to this as well. We’re starting to see a lot more AI ops within some of these that are kinda driving to this. But that hardware piece, that hard that that sort of hardware infrastructure piece, switches, routers, whatever you wanna because security appliances, that to me has always been kind of the missing piece for our tech advisor.
So talk a little bit about what you guys are doing there and how you guys are delivering some value for our, TAs in that space.
Yeah. So one of the points that you made earlier just around local area networking, the total addressable market is just shy of ninety five billion as of last year expected to grow to, I think, it was, like, just shy of a hundred and forty billion by twenty thirty three.
I would say ninety eight, ninety nine percent of that ninety five billion worth of market share is going through traditional resale. And so there’s a massive opportunity for us in our channel route to market to go in, display some of these legacy providers, take market share back into a recurring model. But I think more importantly is deliver the outcomes to the customers
that they’ve been demanding and wanting for so long. And so that’s really the, total solution that METER has put together is empowering our route to market to be able to go to customers, and offer them something in the local area network space that they’ve wanted for the last forty years, and is now here and able to be delivered to them.
Yeah. And again, I think once again, you know, this is an example of where we’re seeing this convergence. Right? I think we saw it a lot in the MSP space where TAs were selling MSP type services and bringing those in.
I talked about it on my last call in the MDU space, right, where we’re seeing these kind of things come together. And this is just another example where customers are asking, hey. I want one person to deal with. I wanted you know, I don’t wanna have to go to this person for my hardware, this person for my connectivity, and this person for whatever.
I want a I want one bat to pack, one hand to shake, and I think that’s really where you guys have been successful.
Yeah. You know, even you you hit the nail on the head earlier. Just siloed complex procurement models, lots of different hardware within their environment, lots of different support requirements within the environment, really simplifying that and taking away the burden to for lean IT teams to keep this critical infrastructure up and running is where we’re seeing the most success. So, again, it comes back to, I think, solving problems with technology as opposed to people is really where this offer is landing. And outside of just the hardware component, it’s the operational and the pricing model that really create a a total offering that’s driving that that value for clients.
So let’s move on to the next slide here, Chandler. Talk a little bit about the offering at METR specifically. Right? How you guys have packaged that? And then I think I’d like to go into a couple of discovery questions that we can help the advisers on the call here with. And then I know you guys have got a couple of, case studies as well that we can go over.
Yeah. Absolutely. So I think, it really started with the vertically integrated hardware and software stack, but there are other traditional networking providers that have great hardware and have great software. Where Where we really start to turn the traditional model on its head and where our route to market can really take advantage of displacing and gaining market share back is in the support model and the pricing model. So we actually design and deploy all of the meter networks that we sell alongside advisers today. So it takes away all of that complex planning and project management that your clients are having to deal with today when deploying local area network infrastructure.
But then another really, really differentiating component for us is the proactive alerting and support. So we are inherently an SLA based offer, which in traditional networking, if you’re familiar, is nonexistent. It is a we sell
you boxes, we sell you licenses, we sell you software. You then figure out, mister or missus client, how to keep this network up and running.
Right? So very, very different model. Think of meter as an extension to your client’s team, always there ensuring that that network is up and running, and we’re delivering the outcomes that we’ve promised to those clients. I think I heard a stat recently from one of our heads of engineering that seventy percent of tickets opened on the thousands of meter networks out in the wild are actually opened by the meter team, not the customer.
Wow.
So we’re we’re actually proactively remediating issues many times before the client is even aware. And then that last piece, which comes to infrastructure as a service and hardware as a service, is the life cycle management. A lot of these clients are going through this cyclical three, five, seven year large CapEx deployment, failing infrastructure, hardware that’s no longer being supported. We solve that problem completely for clients into one of the bullet points that you have future proofing their solution, Graeme.
That’s really what it’s about when it comes to life cycle management. So we have a philosophy here at METER that there will only be two generations of hardware out in the wild at any given time. We don’t charge the clients any extra to be on that latest and greatest hardware that we that we develop and manufacture. So I’ll give you one real quick real life scenario.
Let’s say, today, we sell a customer a meter network, and we sell them a one gig circuit. In twelve months, the company has grown. They have a lot more connected devices within the building. They need a multi gig circuit.
Traditionally, they would have to go back to one of they’d have to go to their CFO out of budget. Hey. I need fifty, sixty, a hundred thousand dollars for a ten gig security appliance because the one we have today is only one gig.
In with with the meter offering, they would essentially call us, and we would ship them out a ten gig security appliance the next day, and we would roll the truck to install it. And their monthly cost does not change a penny.
Yeah. And I think, you know, the pricing model, we don’t really have an opportunity to go through it here today, but anybody who obviously, it’s very, very interesting and very, I think, compelling for for customers in the marketplace. It’s different. Right?
It’s it’s it’s not a traditional model. So I we don’t have a chance to go into it here today, but I do encourage folks to reach out and schedule some time. Let’s talk through a couple of discovery questions. And I think what’s important here is, you know, we’re kinda taking that sort of doctor approach.
Right? We’re diagnosing lifestyle here. We’re asking questions that sort of, get to the root of the matter. And I think some of these are like, hey.
How do you budget for things like network and infrastructure refreshes today? You know, a lot of companies obviously, that’s a huge capital spike, and I think, you know, having to plan for that is a big part of what the finance teams are doing. You know, what’s your time to service for a new site or workload? I think just like you, just talked about right there, like, hey.
What would the normal time frame be to deploy that that switch or that that piece of equipment in in a standard environment? I mean, it could be months. Right? We, you know, gotta get the money, gotta go through approval process.
In that case, next day.
I talked a little bit earlier about Wi Fi six and seven.
What’s the plan there, guys? Like, are you are you moving to that? I mean, that that is gonna be the new standard for Wi Fi, and we know that Wi Fi is, you know, ubiquitous across, most of these enterprise organizations.
So do they have a plan for meeting that new standard?
And then do you prefer to own infrastructure or or consume it like a utility? I think that one really drives at where these companies would prefer to be to, to to consume some of this content. So before we move on to the case study, Vincent, any any comments about those?
No. I think those are all great questions. A very simple one that’s unlocked a lot of opportunities for partners has been, when is your next hardware refresh, and what are you doing about it?
Typically, the IT, team member you’re talking to is probably gonna have a disgruntled look on their face when you ask them that question because it is a it’s a point of contention between them and and finance, typically.
So Yeah.
Yeah. And that’s what we do. We help those guys out. Right? I mean, that’s what, us as TA do.
So we got a couple of quick case studies here, Vincent. So why don’t we roll through those, Chandler? Next slide.
Go ahead. Yeah.
So this one, Vincent.
Yeah. Absolutely. So this is really a sweet spot for for us and where the value proposition is most pronounced is distributed enterprises, multi location. These have a lot of challenge keeping those networks up and running.
This was a REIT that specializes in procuring lots of self storage facilities. As they procure them, they also procure the aging infrastructure at each of them, which is typically never uniformed across all of them. And so the big thing for them was how do we go in and, create uniformity across all of the networks? How do we keep the networks up and running with a very lean IT team and manage it out of a single dashboard?
And how do we have a predictable cost around all of that infrastructure and support? And so, really, that’s where, we were able to provide all of the value for them. And this was a large opportunity that closed in actually less than ninety days.
Wow.
Yeah. I mean, these deals do happen quick, you know, surprisingly, especially when you compare to what the standard consumption model is. You know, the you know, having to buy that equipment. I I mean, having that I mean, I’m always impressed when I hear that story. So, I think you got one more case study for us here as well. Chandler, next slide.
Yeah. This is an interesting one. So Crown College, we have, as part of our wireless and wired network offering, also a cellular offering, not private five g, but we’re able to leverage the existing ISP to deliver five bars of service within a space. Crown College was one of those campuses.
They called it actually the cell phone corner because there was one corner of a small office where they actually had cell signal, and that’s where everybody kinda congregated to make calls. But you can imagine, safety issues for the students, but also the staff needs the ability to communicate via cell phone. So that’s how we started in this opportunity. Ultimately, they found out that we could replace all of their aging infrastructure from a wireless perspective as well.
So it’s kind of a two for one combo.
But, again, nice opportunity where we solved a very big problem for them, and, also, we’re able to add in the wired and wireless networking component as well all on a single stack.
Was another close or, I’m sorry, short sales cycle on this one as well, but, great opportunity for us and for the partner.
Yeah. Hundred and fifty six k, three months sales cycle. I mean, I that sounds pretty good to me. I think, probably most of the folks on the call here today.
I think we got some time for some questions here, Doug.
I know you’ve been kinda checking out the chat there, folks. If you got some questions for Vincent here, I know this is a fairly new concept, this, infrastructure as a service. And, again, not something that a lot of folks have done some or maybe some of you have, but a new way of consuming this technology. So what what do we got in the chat?
Quite a few questions coming in today. Great presentation from you both. We really appreciate it. First, Vincent, question from you from, Vinay. Does, meter connect to all of the major clouds? He’s referencing Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and so forth.
Yeah. So we do have connectivity to Amazon and Microsoft. We also have a unique partnership with Microsoft so that clients can purchase meter services through the Azure Marketplace. The TSD in our route to market’s completely fully comped, but it also deprecates dollar for dollar the Microsoft Azure consumption commit that the customer has. So that’s been a big unlock for us in the mid market and enterprise clients because they’re trying to find ways to optimize that spend.
That is that is huge. If you’ve got clients that are in Azure and stuff, that that that ability to to apply that towards your commit is massive. And anytime we see that, you see somebody who’s gotten Azure play and has a commit there, great opportunity to bring up something like meter. Really, you know, they’ve often their ears perk up when they hear that.
We talk about NaaS. We talk about IaaS. We talk about other, solutions in this family.
And, you know, Vincent, question for you as well. But, Graeme, I’d like your comments also. We always talk about security, always a big concern. And how do these solutions support better network security for the various clients?
Yeah. I I think it comes down to the security requirements that the client has within their environment. We are, by default, zero trust, IDS, IPS. Lots of visibility and granularity in terms of the security that’s built in out of the box to the appliance that we that we provide.
But I think more importantly is we don’t nickel and dime the clients for those different security features, where in traditional networking, there’s different license tiers in order to have security features that may be important to your business. We give it to everybody and let them consume the pieces that are most important to them. So that’s our philosophy there, Doug. Graeme, I would I’d love to get your thoughts too.
Yeah. No. I I think when we talk about security, right, there’s kind of two components to it. There is keeping people out and keeping the network secure, right, which is really sort of falls into that network SaaS y type area.
And then there’s what do you do when they’re in. Right? Well, how do you and that’s kind of a lot of what you know, Jason, I know, talks about a lot of that. But, obviously, those two lines blur.
You know, I talked a lot about convergence, earlier in the call, and I I think I talk about it every time I have a conversation.
You’re starting to see all these things merge together. And we talk about SaaS. Right? One of the most important things to think about SaaS, it’s a framework, right, where you bring all these different elements together in sort of a comprehensive and cohesive plan to address things like security.
And zero trust is a component, a very important component of that, and and something that a lot of customers are leaning on. The adoption rates for zero trust have gone through the roof. I don’t have the stat right in front of me, but, you know, somewhere in the sixty to seventy percent range of enterprises are adopting, zero trust over the next, couple of years. So something that’s really and I think, you know, that element of, hey.
How do we keep people out, right, first off? And then then we gotta find them when they’re in and then and then get rid of them. So there’s those different components of of the security, and this really sort of speaks to that, hey. Let’s lock the door and keep people out.
So Quick, question about typical customer profiles.
Are there sweet spots for both this type of solution and, I guess, specifically with meter as well?
Employee numbers, size of organization.
And can we talk just a little bit about, SLAs for response time and report when and support when we’re talking about these solutions?
Yeah. So we bill on square footage. So think of it as four square walls and the total amount of square footage of network coverage that’s gonna be deployed.
Sweet spots for us are really distributed enterprises. So any vertical where they have multiple locations is a great fit.
Schools is another great fit. So we’re E Rate ready. We have our SPIN number.
They are very much trying to move to an OPEX model, and so we become a very great fit
for for schools. And then warehousing and logistics, really complex network environments.
Building materials are different. Forty, fifty, hundred foot ceilings. How do you deploy a redundant and perform a network into those spaces? And so a lot of times, we’re seeing, lots of success across those those three verticals or those three spaces.
And then guaranteed SLAs, we’re by default four nines of uptime to the clients. So we guarantee four nines of uptime for their network. And, in terms of SEV one, SEV two, SEV three, it’s all available on our website, but I’m happy to share it with the team after this. Any defective equipment, it is an overnight SLA. So next business day, we roll a truck. We have new hardware in place.
Yeah. And I think you hit on a good point there, Vincent, like, especially when you’re talking about schools. Right? I mean, getting that money to do a network refresher.
Frankly, getting money to do almost anything in that space is a challenge. It’s much better for them typically to build it into their budget for the upcoming year so that they have that subscription model. And then another, area where, you know, campus style environments, whether it be we talked a lot about mixed use facilities on the last hit I do, things like that. Those campus style environments tend to be a good fit for you guys as well.
Yeah. Graeme, you just mentioned campus style environments. In a few weeks on the call, we were talking about, MDUs, multi dwelling units. Charlie’s got a great question in here, about how these solutions work in that environment, and is there additional information available as to how those would be addressed?
Yeah. I think we’d wanna learn more about the opportunity in terms of is the building owner going to be the service client and pass it through. So we’re seeing that a lot where, the building owner or the property management company is deploying meter into all of the different spaces within the environment and then actually just charging it as a rent pass through to the customers. So as they move into the spaces, think of it as an amenity in a way to fill vacancies very quickly. Right? If we’re a business and we’re moving into somewhere where there’s a turnkey network solution, all we have to do is sign up for a subscription, helps us in terms of the timeline to to kind of go live as a business within that space. But great question.
Yeah. I think, you know, more in the in the business enterprise type, multi dwelling unit than than residential. Right, Vincent? I think, you know, residential stuff, you guys would do it, but, obviously, it’d have to be kind of more of a unique, setup there.
Business business environment, obviously, it’s perfect. Right? Customer moves into a to a a rented space. Bang.
Everything is there, ready to go. Bickety bam. They’re up and running. And I think that that’s got a lot of appeal for for tenants when they’re moving into a a business type environment.
Vinay’s got another great question in here. You know, for those of us that have been doing this for a
while, we always think in terms of, if I’m upgrading my my network, my systems, my solutions, I’m always concerned about potential downtime and what’s going to be required. As we talk about these types of solutions and the various accessories that can go with them, how do we need to rethink the concept of potential downtime and plan for these types of installations and upgrades?
Great question, Vinay. In traditional networking, there would be downtime if you were swapping out a one gig security appliance for a ten gig. We, by default, deploy high availability into all the environments, and all into all of our client environments. Meaning, there would actually be two security appliances when they signed up with meter, and there would be at every level of the stack. So at the switches and at the eight piece as well. So that’s how we avoid downtime for clients is we would be swapping them out one by one. So there’d be no downtime in that inside of that environment.
That right there, that’s, that’s a big reason to to switch over to this type of model. I mean, that’s huge.
Very good. Any, industries or firms where this really isn’t a viable option at this point that advisors should avoid in favor of, more opportunistic, situations?
Yeah. I think there’s really two. So any organization that has a footprint smaller than ten thousand square feet, we’re really not a great fit for for those for those clients. And the reason for that is, typically, their ISP router and maybe some sort of extender is gonna bring enough Wi Fi to that space.
Now the caveat to that would be if it is a single location. So we have many clients who have two thousand square foot coffee shops, but they have five hundred of them. That is a great fit. So think of it in kind of a singular location, sub ten thousand square feet.
We really wouldn’t have a good value prop in those instances. And then the other one would be really, really large enterprise organizations that have a ton of certified network engineers on staff, they may not be the greatest fit for us today.
And the reason for that is they have deployed a ton of hardware and a ton of capital to build out those networks. It is going to take a long time for them to make a shift and to forklift them.
Yeah. I think that’s really where you wanna drive at that question. Right? Like, where do you want those resources working now?
Right? Like, maybe that’s what they’ve been doing. But, hey. Is that what you want them doing going forward?
And I think that’s really where you drive. Is there an opportunity for somebody like Meter there? You know? Are those people just being reactive and responding to issues?
Do we wanna be more forward thinking with that staff and reallocate those individuals to something else. So I think that’s really key to ask that question and diagnose if there’s an opportunity there.
Andy just popped a question into the chat. It’s an interesting one. I’ll bring it out and you can try to address it however you like. But when we mentioned that the, the gear, the appliances are manufactured, he’s asking whether or not those
are white labeled.
And he brings up the idea, and we all see this, the clients like the brands that they’ve worked with or know well over time.
Do you run into objections with this type of equipment provisioning, and how do you get around it, and are there other options?
Yeah. Great question. So we do make and manufacture all of the hardware. It comes off of JDMs in Taiwan, which is essentially where some of the other, traditional networking solutions that we talked about come from. So Intel, Marvell, Qualcomm chipset.
So no white labeling whatsoever. And then to the second part of the question, which is how do we overcome the objections in terms of, like, Gartner Magic Quadrant and industry leaders? So meter actually this year is on the Gartner magic quadrant as a challenger. So that’s been a big help for us in terms of overcoming those objections is that we are listed, in Gartner. And I think the other way that we overcome the objections is we had to build a vertically integrated tech stack that in a speeds and feeds knife fight could could hold its own. Right? So when you look just line by line in terms of speeds and feeds, we’re on par, if not better, than what they have in place today or what they’ve been evaluating.
The operational and the pricing components is really where we get around a lot of those objections. So sometimes the outcomes and the value to the customer is so much greater than sticking with the traditional brands that they’ve had for a long time. Those are typically where the ones where we get them over the finish line.
Doug, I think that’s need to get out more.
I haven’t heard the team the, term speeds and feeds night fight for a while. Night fight.
That’s just gonna say that’s a first for the Tuesday call right there.
You know?
Graeme, you were gonna say something. I walked on. Yeah.
No. I was just gonna say exactly that. I think that’s the first time I’ve heard someone reference a night fight on, the Tuesday call. So I’m down for it. I’m here for it, man.
Oh, man. You don’t see the email I get afterward.
Let’s see. Yeah. There was another great question here.
Partners always ask, what is the, situation with direct sales and, how can they make certain that their opportunities are given priority, when they come in? Is it a deal registration type of situation with meter? Are there tips and tricks that they should know about in working with your company or in this solution area generally that would help them?
Yeah. So we are, one hundred percent channel integrated here at METR. So we do not have any direct sales. Everything is fulfilled through the channel.
So no competition from that perspective for all of the all of the advisers that are on the call here. We do have a very simple deal registration process. My advice is always lean on your Telarus support resources. Have them they’ve got access.
They’re very well equipped to go in and register opportunities on your behalf. And then I have, a channel team geographically displaced throughout the United States. So you can look in the Polaris portal, see who your, channel support team member is. And that really is your first point of contact.
And so they can help guide you through what that sales process or registration process looks like.
But then there would be somebody from our sales team assigned to that opportunity, engineering resources, project management. You have an entire, bench of resources at METR here to support you.
I think that’s a great story of METR. Right? They kinda, you know, cut their teeth with their own Salesforce, but they believe in the power of this channel where they’ve decided to go one hundred percent channel integrated here. So, you know, that’s, that’s great news for us.
Graeme, I’m out of time, but I wanted to give you a quick minute to, just talk to advisers about, next steps. If they’re interested in this shift in the landscape right now and wanna take advantage of these opportunities, what, resources can Telarus provide to assist them?
Yeah. Thanks, Doug. I think, you know, obviously, anytime we’re talking about something that’s kinda new, right, there’s gonna be a lot of questions. And our sales engineering team is a great resource to work with.
When you have something that you think might be an opportunity for meter, feel free to reach out to our team. They’re well versed in the product. They’ve spent some time with Vincent and his team learning the meter product and learning what it’s all about. So they’re here to help you diagnose those.
Then, of course, as Vincent referenced, he has some you know, they’ve made a lot of investments in channel resources over the last couple of months.
Brought on some Brett Gillespie, you know, formally in in the southeast. Great guy. He’s joined the team, so that’s fantastic.
So just use those resources. Right? This is a new thing. We know it. We understand it, and we’re trying to get our arms around it.
Still a lot of questions in the chat. So, and one last thing before I go, looking forward to seeing you guys tomorrow on the virtual Ascend. Chandler had a couple requests for the, invite. If you could drop that in the chat once again, and folks, love to see you that tomorrow.
We’re gonna talk about some cool stuff going on in mobility and IoT space.
Doug, thanks a lot.
Excellent work.
Graeme, Vincent, thank you very much for the presentation and the information today. Always great to see you here. We hope to have you both back again very soon.