Interesting weekend for food. I made pork chops with a dill mustard sauce and cherry tomatoes, and grilled lamb chops with creamy Asparagus and Peas Risotto. I like to add vegetables to my entrées and pastas. It keeps me from having to prepare a vegetable side dish. I wasn't planning on asparagus in the risotto until I saw my wife had purchased some earlier in the week. Asparagus can be a bit strong and I added the sweet peas to round out the dish. It worked very well. I know some of you will want to leave out the cream or butter but remember your risotto should move/be a bit loose. If it is stiff and you don't want the fat, add an ounce or two of low fat milk as a replacement, just don't invite me to dinner.

Perhaps I'll share the lamb recipe but with the cold up north, I am thinking there's not much grilling going on this time of year. Correct me if I am wrong. Let me know you want to see some grilling recipes now rather wait until spring.

As we have discussed thus far, selecting a PBX for SMBs involves price, value, a review of internal support capabilities and an understanding of the features to be used. Now most of us bring up call forwarding, conference calling, speed dialing, etc. Truth be known, I seldom want to use any of those features. The key word here is want. I am still waiting for a better user interface for the features themselves. I find the real value is in selecting a platform that can combine major applications onto a single product/PBX to more interesting. For example, there are IP PBX s capable of combining IP communications, auto-attendant, video, fax, email and wireless onto a single platform. If it also can support a T1 with two analog ports then the buyer should be golden. The cost savings can be achieved through the transition to IP communications or SIP Trunking and the management of the other IT infrastructure should be simplified by using a single system. Sure, on a comparison matrix certain features may have been left out, but check with your office as to see how many of these are used on a daily basis. The analog ports are good to support heavy faxing, point of sale or credit card machines and alarm systems. Soon though, they may not be necessary at all. IP Networks improve every day. Broadvox sees its transport and reliability levels improve every quarter. Obviously, we also see a commensurate improve in customer satisfaction as well.

Main point, the big PBXs have great features but for the small business that wants to have an in house system, there are several new entrants that will give the big boys a run for their market share. Many can be found at http://www.broadvox.net/PBXVendors.aspx.

Enjoy the risotto!