Although it seems as if I didn’t do much cooking this weekend, when I include all meals, it was pretty busy. The real problem is that I didn’t make anything new. There are times when I am interested in eating one or more of my favorite dishes. That happened to be the case this weekend. Friday we had shepherd’s pie (a leftover rescued from the freezer), breakfast omelettes prepared both Saturday and Sunday. The difference between the two days was the cooking technique. Saturday, I used a technique where you pull the beaten egg across the pan to cook until set, insert filling and fold. Sunday, after seeing a 60’s Julia Child cooking program on omelettes, I used her method. In brief, she uses a pour, let set and shake method. This French method requires a hotter pan than I normally use to make an omelette but it is faster and Gay and I agreed it produced a better product. Saturday afternoon, I fried thin pork cutlets coated in Japanese panko bread crumbs. It was this dish where I first experienced the crunch of panko in Tokyo. I call these thin crisps of pork, pork chips. However, I want to call your attention to tuna salad. Do not dismiss the can of tuna as an inferior food offering. Done well, it can be very good. When I make tuna salad, I add some rarely used ingredients, dried onion flakes and dried lemon peel. They reconstitute in the mayonnaise and blend in better than raw onion or grated lemon peel. It’s a simple but tasty dish. Tuna Salad is the recipe of the week. Enjoy!

It is True that PBX Sales Surged in 2010

According to Eastern Management Group, global PBX Sales rose to $59 Billion in 2010. That is a whopping 14.5% increase over sales in 2009 which is extraordinary given the slow economic growth. I have often paraphrased Warren Buffett’s advice to invest during times such as these in order to position your company for future growth. To some extent that is what businesses around the world are doing. In general, IP PBX investments reduce communications cost, improve employee productivity and position the communications infrastructure for Unified Communications and other applications. Midyear reviews saw sales improve 8.5% from 1Q10 to 1Q11 according to Infonetics. I suspect that similar growth will continue this year as most of our OEMs are very positive or optimistic about 2011 sales with forecasts for 2012 even higher.

The message to the Broadvox partner members and the IP community in general is all signs continue to point to increased sales for IP communications equipment and services. Get out there and grab your share of this exciting market!