2000 - the Millennium boom

The year 1999, leading up to the famed Millenium Bug was the last year that the Telecoms market enjoyed a real sales boom. The uncertainty in the minds of the public (and to an extent the minds of the boffins) was used as a springboard to sell large numbers of "Millennium Proof" Telecoms and Data systems into Businesses worldwide.

I think it's fair to say many businesses benefitted overall from this technology refresh, however there was also many inappropriate sales of immature and unstable systems from manufacturers many of whom should have known better.

It also saw the reinforcement of the Telecoms Maintenance contract business model. A fair proportion of Telecoms system manufacturers based their business model on selling a Telecoms system as a loss leader, with most of the profit on the deal coming from a 5 year maintenance contract.

Unfortunately many Telecoms Resellers saw it as their right to hold the Customer to a substantial annual maintenance fee, and then charged for all other works required by the Customer as chargeable being outside the contract. Outrageously high maintenance charges were taken in return for shockingly poor customer service.

These poor experiences helped accelerate the trend for Telecoms provision becoming the responsibility of the IT Department rather than the Receptionist, on the grounds that "someone technical must understand all this complicated stuff" - rather than leave it all to the person who uses the complicated stuff the most.