"We believe in the 'one office' concept," said Phil Granitz, Principal of Electrical Engineering and member of the Board of Directors for Harley Ellis. "We were looking for a comprehensive voice solution that would allow us to behave as one office regardless of where people were physically located."

"Our people at the construction sites still need to be in contact," Granitz said. "Cell phones just aren't the way, both due to cost and because workers need data connectivity as well as voice."

"Quite honestly, on the first round of events, we did not consider Avaya," Granitz said. "The consultant told us the Avaya equipment did not have the features we needed, so we settled on Fujitsu."

"I found this out while I was on vacation," Granitz said. "When I returned, we went back to the marketplace, and talked to our reps at Fujitsu and our consultant. We had to find a new direction. We were not going to move ahead with a product that was going to be discontinued. We bought it not only for what it could do today but where it was going."

"Avaya was moving in the direction we needed, plus they had the features we wanted," Granitz said.

"They were very helpful and willing to work with us without talking down to us," he said. "We are an architectural engineering firm „ we know about wiring, and they didn't tell us how to wire something. They told us what the system does, and they did a seamless conversion for us. It was very, very smooth „ no problems to speak of."

"When I say one office, I mean you can dial a four-button code to reach anybody in the company. Plus we're all on the same voice mail system," Granitz said. "It's like we're all working next door."

"With Teoma involved, we're confident of a seamless project in Chicago as well," he said.

"They handled the situation very professionally and efficiently under the circumstances," Granitz said. "They met our needs and kept us informed. That's the key. You can deal with things if you know what's going on."

Harley Ellis, Phil Granitz