Apogee Communications Technologies

Apogee Communications Technologies, Inc.
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Incorporated in 1994, providing consulting services in the New York Metro area in communications technologies - security, networking, systems architecture, design, implementation, certification and deployment
Investors in startups or early stage growth companies need to manage risk.

Typical startups and early stage growth companies can quickly stray outside their own area of competency. Investors frequently put in management teams to help the company get started, but often neglect that even technology based companies usually formed around a specific idea ½ may not have the technological knowledge to manage infrastructure or even product deployment in a cost effective way.

There are often 3^rd party products (see our product focus page) that can provide extremely cost effective solutions to these problems. Other problems can be avoided by adopting a sensible technology strategy from the beginning.

Start out with consolidated servers. Don't create an administrative nightmare and security headache before you even start – you will eventually have more than 10 people to worry about. Especially avoid having to start an Enterprise Architecture Initiative 2 years down the road.
Make sure that security is built into everything. Have a security policy that is enforced from day one and adopt a Continuous Improvement Program that is standards based. Surprisingly, having an effective security policy can result in remarkable cost savings in administration, productivity, licensing, insurance, etc. and be a real boon in a rapidly growing company.
Don't reinvent the wheel. For example, companies like Akamai, Real Networks, Digital Fountain, InterNap, etc., have patented solutions to many distribution problems that it is not cost effective or even legal to replicate.
Avoid vendor lock-in wherever possible and use open, standards based, products. Otherwise you will be held hostage by the vendor. Some examples of standards of different kinds:

Liberty Alliance

OASIS ebXML

Open Office

If you are building an office infrastructure from scratch, consider Open Source solutions (Open Office, Linux, Netscape) - see

“Linux, Friend or Foe” Economist, 12 April 2003

Linux Lags On The Desktop Information Week, April 7, 2003 Contrary to the title, this actually paints quite a rosy picture.

Desktop Linux Threatening Windows Consulting Times, 12 Jan 2003

Star Office Some examples of successful Star Office deployments (Feb 2003)

Open Source Survey Infoworld/CTO Magazine (August 2002) an in depth survey of Linux Desktop usage

No ad-hoc customer and user databases. Start out with an LDAP based repository for ever person and entity you do business with. This will become the heart of a CRM system later on once growth takes off. A standards based Portal is a good place to start for a cost effective customer and employee facing secure Extranet.