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New PR network will be
largest technology specialist network in Europe
London - April 14, 2002 - It was announced today that a new Pan
European Network of partner PR firms has been formed. This will enable tech
companies to have consistent and scalable approach to marketing across Europe
with one contact and billing point. The objective is to allow partner PR firms
to compete effectively against multinational groups by providing the most
comprehensive European network and to offer technology companies a seamless
route to European markets. The Eurocom PR Network brings together 140
people working for 150 clients representing billings in excess of 14 million
Euros.
To complement this capability a multi-lingual press contact
centre is being developed in the UK and Netherlands to handle smaller campaigns
on a tight budget. This will provide a low cost option for where full local
support is not required at the early stage.
To date, 14 PR firms have joined the network covering every country in
Western Europe. Countries covered include: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland,
France, Germany Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Arab Emirates (acts as hub for Middle East) and
UK. The Network is in the process of being extended to Central and Eastern
Europe The Eurocom PR Network is the largest tech specialist agency network
for Europe. There are only two other PR networks (both multinational PR firms)
which cover the same number of countries as Eurocom, but Eurocom focuses
exclusively on the technology sector. ...Eurocom
PR Network |
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Inside F***edCompany.com
April 12, 2002 - an
interesting article on eMarketer includes an interview with the Philip
Kaplan, founder of F***edCompany.com who has recently published a book
about spectacular dotcom flameouts.
See also:-
acquired storage companies
on the mouse site. |
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8th Anniversary of Internet
Spam
April 12,
2002 - Eight years ago Laurence Canter created the first Internet email
marketing campaign and a furor that has lasted til this day (it was Time's cover
story at the time). April 12 is the 8th anniversary of what today is called
Spam. Canter, now known as the Father of Spam, is speaking out on the impact of
that first Spam in today's controversial Internet marketing world.
The first spam was actually done by lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha
Siegel. On April 12, 1994, they advertised that they would prepare the documents
for the INS lottery, which permitted non-residents of the U.S. to enter a
lottery for a green card. Their advertisement was posted across the Internet.
And the Internet was outraged.
In 1994, roughly one year after the World Wide Web came into use, the
Internet was primarily populated by academics, scientists and students. The
online community responded with a vengeance. Netizens sent thousands of "pings"
and e- mails to the Internet service provider used by the spammers, crashing
their system repeatedly in retaliation. The entire incident created an uproar
in major publications and television news programs -- and the debate on spam
continues to this day. Canter and Siegel were billed as "The Most Hated
Couple in Cyberspace" by a Time Magazine cover story because they were th
Since
then, Laurence Canter, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, has developed
several financial software packages, including the recent highly acclaimed
software for Stock Option Analysis called Option Crawler.
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Gartner Says Acquisitions
Are in the Future for Microsoft
LOS
ANGELES, CALIF. - April 10, 2002 - As the Microsoft antitrust case nears an end,
the company has built up a cash reserve of $38 billion, which makes the
possibility of large acquisitions by Microsoft almost inevitable, according to
Gartner, Inc.. Gartner analysts gave their outlooks for Microsoft today on
the opening day of the Gartner conference "Windows: Nothing But .NET,"
which is taking place April 10-12 at the Westin Century Plaza in Los Angeles.
During the past 10 years, Microsoft has acquired more than 60 companies, but its
acquisition activity has slowed during antitrust proceedings. The largest recent
acquisition was in December 2000.
"Holding off on acquisitions was cautious and sensible, and
maintaining significant cash on hand was a wise insurance policy in the unlikely
event Microsoft had been forced to split into two or more companies," said
Tom Bittman, vice president and research director for Gartner. "Now that it
appears Microsoft will come through the case somewhat unscathed, it will find a
way to invest this cash through key acquisitions."
Gartner anticipates Microsoft making major acquisitions in
professional services, workload management and media, among other areas. By
year-end 2005, Microsoft will likely spend at least $15 billion to acquire up to
five IT professional services vendors, including a large IT professional
services vendor with a globally recognized brand, according to Gartner.
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The Need For Independent
Storage Consultants
April 10, 2002 - a new
article on STORAGEsearch, by GlassHouse Technologies, Inc. discusses
the need for independent storage consultants. Although storage now
accounting for somewhere in the region of 40%-60% of the average IT budget,
there is still general agreement that most IT organizations do not have a
cohesive strategy around storage. The article suggests that getting "free"
advice from your local friendly VAR or systems vendor is likely to lead to the
suggestion that you just buy more of what they're selling rather than getting
the best value for your budget. Getting independent advice can stop you running
into technology dead ends and investing in non scalable solutions. ...GlassHouse Technologies
profile
Editor's comments:- Marketers in storage vendors should
take not of this new breed of "partners" and influencers in their
market. |
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Giga Reports: Enterprise
Software Applications Market will grow 9% in 2002-2005
CAMBRIDGE,
Mass. - April 8, 2002 - According to a new study by Giga Information Group,
Inc. the $62 billion market for enterprise software applications is
maturing, with license revenue projected to grow at a moderate 9% for 2002
through 2005. This represents a partial recovery from 2001, when license
revenues fell to 4 percent compared to a 39 percent growth rate in 2000.
"The
hockey-stick growth patterns for enterprise applications are clearly over,"
said Giga Vice President Andrew Bartels. "Looking to the future, we expect
the enterprise application market to grow slowly in 2002 as companies digest
their existing investments."
Bartels describes enterprise applications as the software that
companies use to automate business processes, and distinguishes these
applications from other software products such as infrastructure software
(operating systems, databases, etc.), integration and application development
software, or desktop software.
The disruptive e-commerce applications like commerce servers, and
e-market platforms, which saw sky-rocketing demand in 2000 have cooled down,
according to Bartels. CRM and supply chain management had down years as well in
2001 after strong growth the prior year. On the other hand, efficiency-enhancing
applications like human resource management, e-procurement/e-sourcing, financial
management, business intelligence and collaborative product development have
done well during the past year, as have vertical applications like healthcare
systems and retail management.
...Giga Information Group |
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MarketIt Right's New
Premium Subscription and Expanded Information Service
San
Carlos, CA - April 2, 2002 -
MarketIt Right, a virtual marketing department for businesses, announces
the launch of its Premium Member subscription service. The program offers
automated plan generation, lead projections, budgeting utilities, information
retrieval, and project management guides. The service's 21,000
marketing-specific task-timelines and related information are integrated with an
RFP (Request For Proposal) service of thousands of marketing services in over
700 categories.
The Premium Membership service is available for a paid monthly
subscription fee of $19.95 and can be upgraded from the free basic task-timeline
and email alert service. The MarketIt Right service has generated, for seasoned
marketers and newcomers alike, over 28,000 project timelines since its
introduction in March of 2000.
"Each MarketIt Right information service is fully integrated with
all other services," explains CEO Mark Evans. "Strategy builders, for
example, are linked to budget development tools. Marketing calculators guide
businesses are linked to the process of building and managing marketing plans."
...MarketIt Right |
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Technology Spending By
Large Companies Will Drop By An Average Of 14 Percent In 2002, According To
Forrester Research
Cambridge,
Mass. - April 1, 2002 . . . Spending on eBusiness technologies will drop from
an average of 3.5 percent of revenue in 2001 to 3.0 percent in 2002. Based
on a Forrester Research, Inc. survey of nearly 900 high-level IT and
business decision-makers at Global 3,500 firms, average 2002 eBusiness
technology budgets are $29 million compared with $41 million in 2001. The survey
also revealed that business executives expect a more significant drop in
spending than their IT colleagues do.
"Most companies will curb the number and types of technology
products that they will consider buying in 2002," said Tom Pohlmann, senior
analyst at Forrester. "Compared with 2001, companies are much more
risk-averse when considering new technologies, opting to make do with what they
have before buying more."
Compared with last year, 23 percent fewer firms will consider
purchasing the nuts and bolts of server, network, and storage hardware.
Meanwhile, fewer than half the firms will consider purchasing enterprise
application software like CRM, ERP, supply chain, and procurement in 2002....Forrester Research |
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| today's news etc from
MarketingViews | |
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Other news on this page
New
PR network will be largest technology specialist network in Europe
Inside F***edCompany.com
8th Anniversary of Internet Spam
Gartner
Says Acquisitions Are in the Future for Microsoft
The Need For
Independent Storage Consultants
Giga Reports: Enterprise Software
Applications Market will grow 9% in 2002-2005
MarketIt Right's New Premium Subscription and Expanded Information
Service
Technology Spending By Large Companies Will Drop By An Average Of 14
Percent In 2002, According To Forrester Research
earlier
news (archive) |
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Nibble:- Why It's Good to be Paranoid About Getting
Your Data Back
The title of a talk in an
EVault press release ("Cost-effective
Data Backup and Recovery Does Not Lie in the Spool of the Tape") got me
thinking again about data recovery strategies. I take very seriously Intel
founder, Andrew Grove's premise, which appeared on the cover of one of his many
books that "Only the Paranoid Survive." In that context Grove was
writing about business survival, but the concept is transportable to data backup
and recovery.
We're now living in an age where a large part of most
business activity revolves around the linchpin of corporate data. Without that
data, most of us are like those many sad actors you see on talk shows. Without
a script, you would not pay to watch them for very long... Our customers would
soon think we were less than wonderful, if we forgot to ship their products, or
even forgot who they are. The magic of data driven customer service would soon
disintegrate into a tragic farce.
One of my customers, from data
recovery company
ActionFront Data Recovery
recently commented about the peculiar nature of their business. They promote
data recovery, by a variety of methods, but no one considers themselves to be
in the market for data recovery until disaster strikes. So much of that
advertising goes unnoticed. Now you may say that having a proper backup strategy
would avoid many of those problems which require a data recovery company. But
that just shows that you're probably not paranoid enough. In a way having a
backup strategy is like fire insurance. You know it's a good idea, and you hope
that the insurance will pay to rebuild your house if it burns down. But how many
of us ask the critical question... "How long will it take?"
There
are problems with every type of backup method, and I'm going to list just a few
below which are all based on real life examples.
- The backup tape broke. Then the alternative backup tape
broke. Then we found there was a problem with the tape drive and it was chewing
up all the tapes.
- The new web backup company went bust.
- Someone broke into the building at the weekend. They stole
all the PC's, and servers, and the tape drives.
- We regularly did backups, but only discovered when we
tried to restore, that we weren't backing up most of our critical information.
Just stuff for applications which are really old and which we no longer use.
- We used a new style of disk to disk backup system. Then a
new kind of worm entered our network and trashed our data, and the backup.
- The new business plan was on the marketing VP's notebook,
which got stolen.
- There was an electrical fault in our jukebox/tape library
which caught fire overnight. Although it self extinguished, many of the optical
disks/tape cartridges got somewhat melted.
- We used an internet based data replication scheme. But the
electrical storm which knocked out our server, also knocked out the connections
to our local ISP. It will be days before we can reload data down the wires.
- Our old server broke, so we got a replacement model. The
new version of the server OS doesn't recognise or work with our old backup
system.
- The systems administrator who knows all the passwords for
restoring everything, is out of communication for two weeks on a walking holiday
in the Gobi Desert. He left some notes with someone who got run over by a police
car this morning.
- The systems administrator was tired and accidentally
overwrote all the new files with old data.
Are you starting to feel paranoid yet?
If so
that's a good thing. It's better to start worrying now before you encounter a
real problem. All data protection schemes work some of the time, some of them
work most of the time, but no single method of data protection works all the
time. If your corporate survival depends on the survivability of your data. then
start looking at a diversity strategy now. Use more than one method to reduce
the rsiks of the most convenient method letting you down. Is that paranoid?
Maybe so. But to recap the references I used at the start:- "Cost-effective
data backup and recovery does not lie in the spool of the tape" and "Only
the paranoid survive." | |
