Do you think it would be useful to have an experienced network consultant available for free advice via a simple toll-free phone call? Santa Clara, Calif.-based 3Com seems to think so, and it's providing partners with that very service.

Dubbed the Connection Centre, this new service is available directly to all 3Com Advanced Solution Providers and by referral to all 3Com netWorking Partners program participants.

"This is something that we haven't been able to offer in the past. In fact, no one in our industry has been able to offer this level of support," says Doug Hase, 3Com's director of network consultants partner development.

Hase says he is confident that 3Com is the first networking company to offer such an extensive program of pre-sales network design advice.

"What I mean by network design is this goes way beyond just answering questions about products," he says. "Talking about the features or benefits of a product or how many ports it has is OK, but when you try to put products together and figure out if they're going to work together, you have to have a network consultant involved."

Network consultants, of a variety of stripes, are exactly what 3Com hopes to provide with this new service.

"It's kind of a layered effect," Hase explains. "A partner calls 1-800-Net-3com, and they talk first to an individual who is an expert in that particular product and who typically answers questions like how many ports does it have, does it support SMTP, and so on.

"But if it goes beyond that, and the partner starts asking 'how am I going to implement VPN through my entire network?,' it becomes more of a network design issue. Then that partner is transferred to a highly qualified technical person, which is really the Connection Centre."

3Com has a stable of consultants with varying backgrounds to help VARs navigate the murky waters of network installation.

"The expertise ranges from network consultants who have been in the field for 10 years and understand remote dial-in processes, to engineers that actually understand how modems are designed," says Hase.

"Switching, network management — whatever the need is, we have experts in that area. These people have had many many years of technical experience and technical training. They're on the phone, ready to talk to partners at any time."

The service is only open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., central time.

The program was, in a large part, a response to the needs of the company's resellers. Hase says resellers told the company they found it difficult to get the support they needed through the Web, which has become the standard way of disseminating product information and support these days.

"3Com recognized that the Web is a great start for design support, but that not all questions can be answered through that medium," says Julie Parrish, 3Com's director of marketing, Americas sales.

"3Com now provides a pre-sale, one-on-one interaction between its network consultants and channel partners via the Connection Centre."

Hase added that the Connection Centre addresses the problem of vendors being unavailable to help resellers work through and install networking solutions.

"In this increasingly competitive market, it is imperative that manufacturers provide advanced support for their resellers to help them better serve customers," says Rick Bravo, senior pre-sales engineer with Chicago, Ill.-based Ameritech, one of the first North American resellers to use the new centre's services. He added that the Connection Centre program is an example of just what companies ought to be doing.

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