Any hot trends in the pre-owned networking and voice market?

IP endpoint activity is at an all-time high. WLAN access points are trading across all manufacturers, due to the mobility movement. Also, Nortel-branded IP phones and Cisco IP conference phones are currently short in the market. The high demand for these products is an indicator that many organizations still find value in their existing voice platforms. While the unified communications trend will continue to evolve and lead to changes in the voice market, it’s important that there’s still support for customers using older models.

What are you seeing in the pre-owned networking and voice market today?

The "used" market has always been very fragmented with little to no barriers of entry. There’s certainly no shortage of used Cisco dealers – due to the sheer size of the installed base. OEM policy changes around software licensing and OEM support contracts make navigating through procurement and total cost of projects challenging. It’s more important than ever to fully vet used equipment suppliers and their capabilities relative to quality assurance, testing processes and warranty reserves -- both financial strength and finished goods inventory.

Can you explain the origins and evolution of equal2new?

In the mid-1990s, we realized that manufacturers were moving at speeds much faster than our customers' needs. We were the first in the industry to create a certified brand of pre-owned equipment that came with a lifetime warranty and the highest quality. Every piece of equal2new equipment goes through our testing and certification process to ensure our customers are getting a reliable product – we have a 99.51 percent reliability rating and our team takes pride in that process.

Our philosophy is that equal2new enables our customers to upgrade at the pace that makes sense for their organizations, allowing them to use the money they’ve saved to invest in business-driving applications or needs.
As trends such as BYOD, the cloud and Internet of Things are disrupting the status quo, we are continuing to find equal2new as a perfect solution to extend the technology lifecycle. This gives our customers peace of mind knowing they have a partner who can support them regardless of where they are in that timeline.
              
CXtec says you've saved organizations $817 million with eqal2new brand over the years, give me a few highlights.

We've helped several large companies with remote offices spread across the United States finish upgrade projects where the OEM discontinued the product and replaced it with new models. Particularly for enterprise customers, there’s the demand for infrastructure homogeneity. These customers need consistency across the network portfolio for efficiencies of scale, cost savings and ease of management.

Most recently, we saved a customer more than $800,000 in a single upgrade by understanding what they needed to accomplish and keeping them with their Cisco 6509E platform. We were able to develop a solution using equal2new modules, instead of the new configuration provided by their local VAR.