The Problem with Short
Months
Editor:- April 30, 2003 - Like you marketers, we publishers
also tend to operate on a monthly cycle. Although, this will be my 8th year as a
web publisher and I'm not physically constrained by any print or production
timescales, most of our customers still plan around a calendar month. And so
most of our ads still end on month boundaries. It's a human thing.
This
morning, I realised there wasn't going to be an April 31st - so I didn't have
the luxury of an extra day to complete my tasks for April... Whoops.
My
least favorite month is February. It seems that you have to get just as many
things done, but there are 10% less days in which to do them.
If you,
like me, have been rushing around trying to meet your month end goals today, you
can look forward to the luxury of a 31 day month in May. But the last few days
will still be a panic. That's just the way it goes. |
|
Gartner Reports Sun's
Competitors Grew Worldwide Server Shipments by 17% in the First Quarter of 2003,
while Sun Shipments Declined 13%
STAMFORD,
CONN. - April 28, 2003 - Worldwide server shipments totaled 1.2 million units
in the first quarter of 2003, a 10.4% increase from the same period last year,
according to preliminary statistics from Gartner, Inc.
Hewlett-Packard retained the top spot in the worldwide rankings with 29.1% of
server shipments. Dell Computer remained in the No. 2 spot with 20.2% of the
market, followed by IBM with market share of 14.8%. |
 |
Sun Microsystems was the only
top-tier vendor to experience a decline in worldwide server shipments in
the first quarter of 2003. The top three vendors continued to dominate the
market and accounted for more than half of all units shipped during the quarter
(see Table 1).
The U.S. server market experienced an increase of 13.2% in the first
quarter of 2003, with shipments of 499,609 units, up from 441,540 units in the
first quarter of 2002. This is the fifth consecutive quarter in which the United
States posted a year-over-year growth rate greater than 10%.
Dell
moved into the No. 1 spot in the U.S. server market with 27% of the market.
...Gartner profile
See
also:- articles
about the Sun market |
|
Internet Wire changes name
to Market Wire
Editor:- April 28, 2003 - Over the weekend,
Internet Wire changed its name to
Market Wire. The company also
changed its web address. Strangely for a company whose business is press release
distribution - there was no press release about the name change listed on the
Market Wire site when this happened. Cobblers wear the worst shoes - I guess. |
|
Use of Press Release
Newswires Has Declined Sharply in the IT Market
Editor:- April 25,
2003 - in recent months most of the internet based Press Release Newswires
listed on my Press Release
FAQ's page have redesigned their web sites to make their navigation more
cumbersome. My cynical take on this, is that the redesigns make it harder for
customers of these sites to notice that they are in fact carrying a lot less
news stories in the IT market than they used to. In the worst case some
newswires now carry no relevant stories (measured in a weekly sample
window) while even the best have seen a decline approaching 90% compared to
their peak in the first half of 2000.
As editor of a high volume
computer publication - STORAGEsearch.com
(0.5 million readers) - I've also noticed another effect of the IT recession.
Incoming news direct from PR agencies is down about 80% compared to just a year
ago.
What has this meant for our readers? Our growing
storage readership has seen no
decline in news stories because there are more companies in the market (despite
the fact that the acquired,
dead, renamed & merged STORAGE companies list is heading towards 200).
Most of the news I run as an editor comes direct from vendors themselves, either
by email or from their web sites. This growing trend, triggered by the need for
IT companies to cut external costs has made newswires much less relevant than
they used to be.
On the other hand, in the Sun market, served by our
SPARC Product Directory
publication which covers the Sun Microsystems market, we have published less
news stories than last year due to a decline in vendors surviving in this
troubled market. However our SPARC reader pageviews have risen significantly
this year. Mostly readers use this 11 year old publication to shop around and
research new suppliers and products. News has always played a minor role in the
SPARC Product Directory.
My gut feel is that IT companies, having
experience the benefits of zero cost news distrbution, are unlikely to rush back
into using agencies and distribution services when the recovery comes.
Does
that mean newswires have become irrelevant in the IT market?
No. I
think there's still a role for newswires when it comes to financial reporting.
In those situations, stories about a company may be picked up by very diverse
media, for example if the company is a local employer. But I think newswires now
have a lesser role for product announcements and other news which are mostly
distributed to readers via focused vertical media. On the other hand, smaller
companies and startups will continue to rely on help with their news
distribution until they grow to a level where they know the important contacts
in their markets, and have the resources to deal with them directly.
Does
that mean the newswire industry is in terminal decline?
No. You can't
extrapolate from the trends in just one industry (IT) and say it spells doom
for newswires. However, they may have to rethink what their value added
proposition really is, if this trend spreads out to other business segments. |
|
Peripheral Concepts
Publishes Backup and Archive Report - A User's Perspective
Santa Barbara,
California - April 22, 2003 - next month Peripheral Concepts will
publish a market report titled "Backup and Archiving - A User's
Perspective". A population of over 1,000 IT sites totaling 320
petabytes of disk storage and 1,050 petabytes of nearline tape storage, was
surveyed and questioned on their backup and archiving practices and plans and
the resulting report provides statistics on practices, ranks issues and needs,
indicates satisfaction ratings, and analyzes trends and plans.
The
survey reveals that secondary disk is playing an increasingly important role in
backing up corporate data. 60% of the population is using disk backup,
typically for less than 20% of their data. But, tape remains by far the most
popular medium. Snapshot and Virtual Tape, mostly used today in large sites, are
poised for a very important growth in mid-size IT operations.
Reliability and performance are cited at the top of the backup product
selection criteria, followed by cost, scalability and ease-of-use. When it comes
to problems they encounter in backup, reliability and data integrity are again
very high, followed by impact of the backup operation on the application and
network performance. Archiving is treated as a separate application from backup
by half of the population, with another 21% planning to set it up as a separate
application within the next two years. Recent regulations are putting pressure
on the need to store historical information. One third of the population claims
over 50% of their archived data as "reference data".
HSM has
only penetrated 13% of the population today, but its utilization will double
within the next two years. Content-addressed storage is deemed very important by
40% of the population Nine industries were primarily targeted: Finance/banking,
health, manufacturing, retail distribution, government, education, consulting,
transportation and telecommunications. The survey reveals interesting
peculiarities in each industry practices and requirements. The analysis of this
extensive survey which covers over 100 questions. The report costs $4,950. ...report
summary & order form,
...Peripheral Concepts
profile |
|
CeBIT Report from
Jean-Jacques Maleval, editor of StorageNewsletter
Europe:- April 16, 2003 - the new
edition of StorageNewsletter includes a special show report on last
month's CeBIT from editor Jean-Jacques Maleval from which this is extracted.
...This year's show, with numbers way down, was the calmest we'd seen since
1989. Not for storage, though, which marked a record number of displays, with
the emphasis on the boom in new interfaces, S-ATA and USB 2.0.
We used to gripe that CeBIT had become so inhuman, in light of its
enormous scale, that it was no longer tolerable. Therefore, we can't complain
now that it has declined significantly with this year's edition, held from
March 12-19, even if it still easily retains its title as the world's largest
IT convention. The number of sponsored booths fell by either 10 or 18%,
depending on which figures you believe: 6,523 displays, the lowest number since
1995, miles below the record 8,093 set in 2001, the year of the dot.com bubble.
The number of visitors fell annually from 17%, to roughly 560,000. That's the
lowest attendance figure since 1989!
CeBIT 2003 resonated with the difficulties and current uncertainties
of the Western world, as well as the resurgence of Asia's influence. After
Germany, with the home field advantage (and whose figures include displays
reserved by German subsidiaries of major companies),
Taiwan led the pack with 655 booths (+11% over 2002), ahead of the U.S.
(247 stands, -23%). Representatives from China were nearly double this year,
with 114 displays. Germany, suffering particularly from an economic crisis,
fell 15% to 3,702 booths. The IT crisis still affects trade shows more heavily
than other budget items, to the extent that the first expenditures slashed by
hurting companies are promotion and exhibitions. The company that organizes
Comdex, until now the only serious competitor to CeBIT, has filed for Chapter
XI proceedings.
Beneath this gloomy horizon, our readers may be pleased to learn,
however, that the number of storage industry displays increased, according to
our calculations, from 186 in 2002 to 206 this year (+11%). It is therefore
tempting to conclude that within the IT industry, storage seems less affected
than other sectors. Among the major players, a few firms were present this year
were not present in 2002: 3Ware, Exabyte, FalconStor, Fujitsu Softek, Overland
and Quantum. Conversely, some present last year skipped this year's event:
Castlewood, Emtec, Eurologic, M-Systems, Maxtor, Memorex, O'Dixion, Pioneer,
Qualstar, Seagate and TDK.
Other surprising absences: Atempo, Iomega,
Lexar Media, Peak Storage Solutions (ex-Maxoptix) and Vixel. Overall, however,
the storage community was a forceful presence in Hanover.
Those who
don't make it are generally experiencing financial problems, or if not, claim
that they believe the considerable investment required for a CeBIT display is
not worth the limited returns, although this doesn't prevent them from showing
up a year later claiming the opposite. It all depends on your definition of
worthwhile returns. How much will it cost a company to send a sales rep to
visit all the international contacts available at this huge convention? It
costs Euros 180 per square meter to exhibit at CeBIT, but then you must add on
display construction, salaries for the people working them over an 8 day
period, plus incidental expenses (brochures, travel, hotel, food, etc). Seagate
stayed away in '94 and '95, then returned every year until now.
Before
this year, Maxtor had only missed the 1997 edition. Last year, these two HDD
rivals, along with WD, were all clustered together next to each other.
Uncharitable rumors attribute the first two's absence this year to their desire
to avoid a barrage of questions about when they would be releasing their first
S-ATA units at 10,000rpm, while WD's display this year focused almost
exclusively on this appealing product.
...StorageNewsletter
profile |
|
The 10 biggest storage
companies in 2005
Editor:- April 14, 2003 - a
new article published today on
STORAGEsearch.com " the 10 biggest storage companies in 2005"
predicts the biggest storage companies measured by revenue at the end of 2005.
Now in its 3rd year, this very popular feature also looks back to see how
accurate were the forecasts made for 2003. With an established track record
and hundreds of thousands of readers, you can't afford to miss this important
reference if it's important for you to avoid investing your IT budget in
dead storage companies. |
|
Storage Visions 2004
Conference Invites Speakers & Sponsors
Atascadero, CA - April 10, 2003 - A
Storage and Content Industry Advisory Board has been formed for the 2004
Storage Visions Conference. It is Chaired by Mr. Tom Coughlin of
Coughlin Associates and Mr. Gary Schultz of Multimedia Research Group, and
consisting of representatives from the content storage provider and user
communities has been established to help steer the session topics, keynote
speakers, demonstration laboratory, sponsorships and theme of the 2004
conference. Members of the advisory committee are Lowell Moulton of Sony, Rob
Pait of Seagate, Stephen DiFranco of Maxtor, Ken Morse of PowerTV (part of
Scientific Atlanta), Peter Fasciano of Avid Technology, Mark Gray of Kasenna,
and Rob Koenen of the MPEG-4 Industry Forum.
The Storage Visions 2004 Conference will be held in Las Vegas January
6-7, 2004 to address critical technology and market issues for the
implementation of a completely digital entertainment industry. Issues for the
2004 conference include requirements for creating, storing, transmitting and
distributing multimedia content.
Over 70 companies were involved in the sessions, exhibits and keynote
addresses during the 2003 conference with a 40% increase in attendance compared
to the 2002 conference.
The 2004 conference is now soliciting
speakers, exhibitors and sponsors. Companies that are interested in
participating in the 2004 conference should check out the conference speaker,
exhibitor and sponsor brochure that is available on the conference web site.
Interested parties can also call Tom Coughlin at 408-978-8184 or Gary Schultz
at 408-524-9767 to participate. Bound copies of the 2003 conference
presentations are still available for sale.
...Coughlin
Associates profile, ...Storage
Visions 2004
Editor:- STORAGEsearch.com
is a media sponsor for this event again. |
|
Pre Millenium Banner Ads
from the Sun market
Editor:-
April 9, 2003 - a new article in the SPARC Product Directory features
Pre Millenium Banner Ads from the Sun market. You can learn a lot about
banner ad marketing from looking at these ancient ads. ...SPARC Product Directory |
|
1,000 New Royalty Free
Stock Images at Photosphere.com
Blaine, WA - April 9, 2003 - Photosphere.com
adds 1,000 new photographs, provides immediate discounts to newsletter
subscribers and updates site design. Photosphere.com licenses royalty free
stock photo images to designers producing print, web and multimedia projects.
Under new management since January 2003, Photosphere.com has been undergoing
constant change. According to President, Allen Haslinger, "Since January
we've rebuilt the web site, increased the number of royalty free images
available, and now we're providing immediate discounts to our Newsletter
Subscribers."
...Photosphere.com |
|
NE Computing Plc Selects
Strategic Alliance International as PR Consultancy for the UK
UK - April 8, 2003 -
NE Computing has appointed the high-tech public relations consultancy,
Strategic Alliance International, to handle its UK PR press and market
analyst relations programme. Although an established company, this is the
first time NE Computing has engaged a professional PR consultancy to undertake a
concerted campaign to increase market visibility, especially in key vertical
sectors such as pharmaceuticals, legal and financial services.
"We are delighted that Strategic Alliance International has
become our Public Relations consultancy for the UK," said Jon Eyres, NE
Computing's managing director for Europe. "Strategic has a long history as
a PR specialist in the storage and networking sector, having run successful
campaigns for many key industry players. Their knowledge of this sector is
excellent and they have a clear track-record of success."
Working with leading software and hardware partners, such as Sun, HP,
Citrix, StorageTek and Veritas, NE Computing provides best-of-breed products and
services which deliver powerful resources to help organisations optimise their
IT functionality and ultimately leverage their corporate competitiveness. ...NE Computing,
...Strategic Alliance International
See
also:- Sun
resellers in the UK, UK
storage VARS |
|
New Study Shows That
Leading IT Vendors Are Ignoring Qualified Website Prospects - Even in Tight
Economic Times
BOSTON, MA -
April 7, 2003 - Just because IT vendors are complaining about the current
technology slump doesn't mean they are aggressively pursuing qualified Website
prospects. In a recent study by Summit Strategies' siteIQ research
team, less than one third of the vendors responded to Web-based requests for
sales call-backs. Vendors that failed to respond to prospects' requests are a "Who's
Who" of the IT industry, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell Computer, EMC and
Computer Associates.
"Our study shows that vendors create huge barriers for prospects
on their Websites," said siteIQ Practice Director, Marty Gruhn. "These
companies hide their 'Contact Us' and 'Request More Information' forms all over
their Websites; expect visitors to complete multiple forms when they are looking
for an integrated solution; ask a mind-boggling array of questions; and play
hide-and-seek with their privacy policies. Then they either ignore qualified
prospects completely or call them back so late that prospects must wonder
whether the vendor is really interested in their business."
Although the majority of vendors in the study failed, some are clearly
setting the pace for competitors. "Microsoft's Business Solutions and Great
Plains won hands down," continued Gruhn. "Microsoft is the only
company that covered all of its bases by responding in less than one hour with
an e-mail linking us to a personal buying page; calling us within two hours; and
then reaching out four more times over the next nine days."
A handful of other vendors also fared well in the study. Juniper
Networks received the award for the fastest sales response by sending a well
written e-mail, and calling five minutes after a request was submitted. All five
of IBM's product groups responded with sales calls, although only two (eServer
and Storage) responded within five days. Sun Microsystems received kudos from
the siteIQ team for meeting its promise to contact prospects within 24 hours.
The study takes an in-depth look at the Website-related
lead-generation capabilities and performance of leading IT vendors in five
market segments. Vendors included in the study are IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell
Computer, Sun Microsystems, EMC, Storage Technology, Nortel Networks, Cisco
Systems, 3Com, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, Oracle, J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft,
SAP, Computer Associates, Siebel Systems, BroadVision, EDS, Accenture,
BearingPoint and IBM Global Services. ...Summit Strategies profile |
|
Hilarious Sales Horror
Stories: SalesAutopsy.com awarded AMA Marketing's BEST Web Sites
April 4, 2003 - Called a "cult
hit among salesfolks" by Sales & Marketing Management Magazine, SalesAutopsy.com
has provided fun reading - stupid sales mistakes - as comic relief for the tough
life of the sales professional. Hilarious tales of sales gone bad has
proved a popular visiting spot for sales professionals and entrepreneurs. The
American Marketing Association (AMA) decided www.SalesAutopsy.com was unique
enough to earn a spot on the cover of Marketing News Magazine as one of
Marketing's BEST Web Sites.
Dan Seidman, founder of the website of sales horror stories explained
that he developed the website in 1999 after collecting most embarrassing sales
experiences during 15 years of sales training and management. Dan has sorted
through hundreds of collected tales to compile a book of the best of the worst
sales stories. The Death of 20th Century Selling: 50 Hilarious Sales Blunders
and How You can Profit from Them is a business humor book that actually teaches
sales professionals what tactics to adopt and what to avoid.
"Many sales managers and trainers are using these stories to
coach their teams and train them," explains Dan. "Laughter is a very
powerful tool in learning environments."
When the book came out in 2002, Dan suddenly found himself in great
demand as a speaker for national sales conferences and trade show. The AMA
selected www.SalesAutopsy.com from websites that position themselves in a unique
fashion and so stand out from any competition. ...SalesAutopsy.com
|
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Other news on this page
The
Problem with Short Months
Gartner Reports Sun's Competitors Grew
Worldwide Server Shipments by 17% in the First Quarter of 2003, while Sun
Shipments Declined 13%
Internet Wire changes name to Market Wire
Use
of Press Release Newswires Has Declined Sharply in the IT Market
Peripheral
Concepts Publishes Backup and Archive Report - A User's Perspective
CeBIT
Report from Jean-Jacques Maleval, editor of StorageNewsletterThe 10 biggest
storage companies in 2005
Storage Visions 2004 Conference Invites
Speakers & Sponsors
Pre Millenium Banner Ads from the Sun market
1,000
New Royalty Free Stock Images at Photosphere.com
NE Computing Plc
Selects Strategic Alliance International as Public Relations Consultancy for the
UK
New Study Shows That Leading IT Vendors Are Ignoring Qualified
Website Prospects
Hilarious Sales Horror Stories: SalesAutopsy.com
awarded AMA Marketing's BEST Web Sites
earlier
news (archive) |
|
 |
Advertising
on
STORAGEsearch |
| When
Cheaperbyte's sales manager said "Accelerate your storage sales",
he knew just the right way to do it. | | |
|
|
|
Nibble:- Coming of Age for Solid State Disks
Although
manufacturers in the industrial controls market, like Square D and AB were
using rewritable non volatile solid state storage as early as the 1970s, it
wasn't till 1985 when Curtis
introduced their ROMDISK for the original IBM PC, that the solid state disk
market started in a form which we would recognise today. For most of its early
life, this technology remained an open secret - mainly used in embedded systems
in military applications, or in high performance computer research labs.
Now
at 18 years old, the SSD market is ready to come out as a fully mature easy to
use technology which will change the way in which all computer systems, from the
desktop to the mainframe, are architected.
Here are some trends which
track the interest of STORAGEsearch.com
readers in the subject of SSDs over the past few years.
In Q1 2001 -
SSDs were the 18th most popular subject.
In Q1 2002 - SSDs were #4.
In
Q1 2003 - SSDs were #2.
That means there's more interest in SSDs in our
readership than in NAS, or backup software, both subjects which attract hundreds
of thousands of readers.
The reason is simple. The SSD market has the
potential to become a bigger market than NAS and storage software are right now.
In 2008 the SSD market will be worth more than $10 billion a year. You, our
readers, like to have a foretaste of emerging storage technologies. That's why
many of the subjects on this website like
iSCSI and
Serial ATA shot into
our top 5 most popular subjects more than a year before a single one of these
products had been shipped.
SSD systems, if properly engineered, have
the potential to replace dozens of processors in your most expensive mainframe,
at a small fraction of the cost. At the low end, SSD software running on a
desktop PC with a few hundred bucks of add in memory can outperform a $20K
workstation in some critical business analysis applications.
Next
month , we're going to publish the definitive buyers guide to SSD products and
suppliers, collecting together information from all the vendors in the industry.
In the meantime you can do your own research in the many articles,
products and companies listed on our
Solid State Disk page.
Products already shipping in this market segment span the range of budgets from
under $50 up to $2 million and everything in between.
During this
recession. many of the companies in the SSD market have been achieving double
digit and triple digit revenue growth rates. But you'd be surprised how many of
the leading companies in this market have been around for ten years or more,
working quietly away at this technology. All that is going to change soon, and I
have a feeling that some of them will become as well known in the general IT
market place as VERITAS and Network Appliance are today.
And my
ScryWare crystal
ball to market report generator is seldom wrong... | |
