We went into a regular client this week, after another consultancy had tried to integrate Lync with exchange 2010 and get a sip trunk working.

4 full days – and not only was it not working, but it was busted existing functionality. (We put in the original Lync home server)

We actually picked up this client because the same consultancy took 4 weeks to “install” SCCM  a few years ago, but never got it going. (which we then got going in 1.5 days…. and yes, 1.5 days (or less) is what it should take for a single site SCCM install + windows 7 reference + production builds… )

Anyhoo – this crowd ran a sales presentation in the MS office, and convinced this client to give them another chance…. it didnt work out well – and the invoice got waived, fair enough…. at least it was recognised by management that the work completed was sub par.

What i dont get is… if your a consultant going into a place to put in <insert product here> – wouldnt you have at least installed the product in a virtual environment first ? You’re getting paid a s a consultant, so you should know alot… but even if you dont, at least know the basics….. which can all be picked up just by doing a few dummy installs in a test environment and reading some doco…. its not hard.

In this specific case, exchange 2010/Lync 2010 OWa integration, Lync 2010 mediation server sip trunk with external provider, Lync 2010 mobility service  and Lync 2010/Exchange UM integration are all well documented and blogged about items… none of them are particularly unique or difficult (althought the mobility service can be a bit of pain to troubleshoot)

So – whats the point of writing this – well, simply this – your giving IT people a bad name…. a fucking bad name…. fair enough everyone has different skillsets, specialities, skills and goals…. but if your getting paid $200/hour+ to go implement a basic product set, you should be able to complete the work…. (and yes, it is completely different if your not a consultant and costing the business 1/4 of that fee). If your not prepared to put in the small amount of time to at least get the basics concepts right – fuck off to another industry that your actaully intesrested in…. and stop fucking over clients and giving us all (an undeserved) bad name.