The number of calls, e-mails, and general inquiries I’ve been receiving about the branch office has done the hockey-stick incline in the past few months. At the same time, you’ve probably noticed a lot of vendors discussing their products, services, and plans for the branch office.

Yes, IT executives and managers - not to mention business-unit leaders - are paying more attention to the branch office. What's driving this increased interest? Two key factors:

First, data center consolidation projects are well underway or nearly finished at many organizations. Now that the databases and applications reside in a central location, the IT and networking staffs must make sure the infrastructure to and in the branch is up to par. They need to ensure that the remote employees can access data and applications in a consistent, predictable, and efficient manner.

In fact, Nemertes found that user expectation for branch-office performance vs. headquarter and large regional office performance will become nearly even by 2007. What this means is that employees in small branch and even home offices will expect nearly the same performance as they receive when they're in headquarters. Their patience for slow access lines, inconsistent application response time, and outages is drastically waning, so calls to the help desk and complaints to IT will be on the rise.

Second, business-unit leaders are recognizing their remote workers must be as productive as possible - and that a solid IT infrastructure enables this productivity. Companies are adding branch offices at an average growth rate of 8.9% annually, and they continue to hire people to work at branch locations. To stay competitive, they need collaborative tools and a solid IT infrastructure.

During the next few weeks, I will discuss some of the products and services that will help organizations meet these branch office challenges. Many of the e-mails and calls I receive are from those asking for help in selecting the right products, designing the right architecture, and determining who should be the decision-maker. Let me know what’s on your mind, and I'll do my best to incorporate the answers in the next series of columns.