N2N + AVANT · Trusted Advisor · Portland, Oregon
Your workforce speaks.
The network listens.
In any language.
An agentic AI layer — voice, image, 87 languages — sits above your existing software without replacing it. Backed by AVANT Global Service Providers and N2N + AVANT's fifty years of vendor-neutral expertise.
The Agentic AI Advantage
Intelligence on top of
what you already own
Most enterprises have invested heavily in core software — ERP, CRM, order management, logistics platforms. The agentic AI layer N2N + AVANT delivers sits above all of it, adding voice and image input with real-time translation in 87 languages. Your systems don't change. Your global workforce's access to them does.
AVANT Proprietary Tools
Pathfinder & Atlas:
From requirements
to pricing in minutes
AVANT is the master distributor for the nation's leading technology service providers. Their proprietary tools — Pathfinder and Atlas — compress months of procurement into a single structured conversation. N2N + AVANT brings both to every engagement.
N2N + AVANT facilitates the data gathering process through specialized Industry Vertical Templates — purpose-built for your sector, capturing the right requirements the first time.
Founder & Trusted Advisor
Bob Nelson
N2N Solutions LLC · Trusted Advisor with AVANT
Bob Nelson holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Oregon State University (1967) and has been selling technology since 1969 — doing it without allegiance to any single vendor since 1974. That vendor-neutral operating philosophy, forged at MODLINE Systems before the IBM PC existed, is the foundation of everything N2N + AVANT delivers today.
Bob began his technology career in mainframe sales at RCA, before co-founding Modular Online Systems Inc. (MODLINE) with George Fanno and Dr. David Moe in Portland, Oregon in 1974 — a year before the Altair 8800. MODLINE wrote platform-agnostic software for IBM, Burroughs, HP, and Wang simultaneously, serving clients including Nike, Tektronix, and Bonneville Power Administration. Bob served as MODLINE's sole marketing and sales professional for its entire seven-year run. He may have written the first platform-agnostic software product license — required when the same software ran across hardware from competing manufacturers.
After MODLINE ceased operations in 1981 — months before the IBM PC launched — Bob founded COMAR, completing five major ERP implementations and developing QUALIS (1986), a pre-internet computer-aided automobile matching system. He founded N2N Solutions LLC in 2004 and sold a 1,100-node national data network pre-MPLS.
Today, as a Trusted Advisor with AVANT — the nation's leading master distributor of technology service providers — Bob brings half a century of vendor-neutral discipline to enterprise clients navigating global connectivity, agentic AI adoption, and secure infrastructure at scale.
His military background: USMCR Officer Candidate School Graduate, 1965. Earned the rank of Second Lieutenant; medically disqualified in 1967 following a football injury.
Bob Nelson · Portland, Oregon
"We have been vendor-neutral since 1974. That is not a marketing position — it is a fifty-year operating philosophy, documented, and now expressed at global scale."
Bob Nelson · N2N + AVANT
Career Timeline
Global Infrastructure
The network behind
every conversation
1,200+ connected data centers. Priced in minutes. Secured end to end.
What AVANT Delivers
- Master distributor for leading technology service providers
- Pathfinder — industry-specific requirements templates & provider matching
- Atlas — global pricing across 1,200+ data centers in minutes
- SD-WAN optimization for distributed enterprise networks
- Endpoint security with firsthand provider knowledge
- Agentic AI infrastructure — voice, image, 87 languages
- Domestic and international connectivity solutions
Why N2N + AVANT
- Vendor-neutral since 1974 — no hidden allegiances
- AVANT relationships across the full provider ecosystem
- 50+ years navigating technology transitions
- Northwest-based, nationally connected, globally capable
- From mainframe to agentic AI — unbroken expertise
- Single point of accountability across complex deployments
- Trusted Advisor relationship — peer, not subcontractor
Start the Conversation
Schedule a call with
N2N + AVANT
No sales pitch. A structured conversation about your network requirements, your existing software, and where agentic AI and global connectivity can move the needle.
About You
Contact N2N + AVANT
What to expect: A direct, candid conversation. Bob will ask about your current infrastructure, your global workforce, and your software stack. If N2N + AVANT can help, we'll show you how — specifically and quickly.
Select a Time — Bob Will Confirm by Phone
- Mon – Fri · 9:00 AM PacificMorning
- Mon – Fri · 11:00 AM PacificMid-Morning
- Mon – Fri · 1:00 PM PacificAfternoon
- Mon – Fri · 3:00 PM PacificLate Afternoon
- Evening / Weekend · By ArrangementFlexible
Select a time above. Bob will reach out by phone to confirm — no automated scheduling, no bots. A real conversation to start.
Portland, Oregon · 1974 — 1981
MODLINE
A Memorial
A tribute to Bob Nelson, George Fanno, and Dr. David Moe — and the twenty technologists who automated 167 companies and built something extraordinary here, before the Altair, before the IBM PC, before anyone called it a software industry.
The Un-Hardware Company™
The Origin
Modular Online Systems Inc. was incorporated in Portland, Oregon in 1974 — one year before the Altair 8800 introduced the world to the personal computer. Bob Nelson, George Fanno, and Dr. David Moe built something that would not have a name for years: a platform-agnostic software company.
No one ever used the full name. From the beginning, the company was simply MODLINE — a brand that took hold organically, without a campaign, without a strategy. Just work that spoke for itself, and a name that stuck. That kind of branding cannot be manufactured. It has to be earned.
Their software ran on IBM System/34, Burroughs B900, HP 3000, and Wang — simultaneously, for the same clients. IBM, Burroughs, HP, and Wang all brought their own client software requirements to MODLINE. Bob may have written the first platform-agnostic software product license, required when the same software had to run across hardware from competing manufacturers.
They called themselves "The Computer Professionals." They trademarked something better: The Un-Hardware Company™. At peak, twenty technologists worked under George Fanno's technical direction — while Microsoft had three.
The Building
3220 SW 1st Avenue, Portland, Oregon — where Modular Online Systems Inc. operated until 1981. The building still stands today, a quiet landmark on the western edge of downtown Portland.
From those offices, the view was extraordinary — four mountains, all of downtown Portland, and the Willamette River. A fitting backdrop for the work being done inside.
The People
The Clients
Technical Record
"Vendor-neutral since 1974 — before the term existed, before the industry had a name for what we were building."
The operating philosophy that became N2N + AVANT