Thursday, March 24, 2005

Forrester upsets Ford with new magazine

And again from Tom at SiliconValleyWatcher, it seems that Ford has withdrawn a large amount of business from Forrester because of a story in the company's new magazine.

The full story's at:
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2005/03/news_forrester.php

Jupiter Research up for sale

Jupiter Research is up for sale according to rival Forrester.

Tom Foremski at SiliconValleyWatcher has the story:
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2005/03/jupiter_researc.php

New public sector analyst at Ovum

Ovum's added another analyst to its public sector team. John O'Brien joined from Computerwire at the start of this week.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

New wireless analyst at Ovum

Tony Cripps has joined Ovum as an analyst covering the wireless software space. He was previously with Computerwire.

So why are analysts important

These days most people in IT PR recognise that the industry analysts are an audience that they should be targeting. Still, not everyone understands why analysts are such a crucial audience for almost every IT company looking to sell to a business or public sector body so I thought it would be worth just running through the three main reasons:

First consider the impact they have on sales. There are numerous surveys that break this out in depth but here are some headlines for you to consider:

· 11 / 12 CIOs “get real value from the information and services provided by IT industry analysts” (CIO Jury, silicon.com)

· Analysts are the second most important source of influence on UK IT directors, after peer recommendation (Vanson Bourne)

· 86% of UK and European IT decision-makers will not purchase enterprise applications without getting analyst input (Insight Marketing)

· 40 – 60% of technology purchases worldwide are influenced directly by analysts (Kensington Group)

It’s not just about direct commercial benefit though. While the analysts can help IT companies get on a shortlist (and more importantly, can get them knocked off a shortlist), there are other benefits to be realised.

There’s the market intelligence that the analysts can provide. They are talking to the users of technology and they’re talking to most of the vendors who are selling it. Their view of the market is almost inevitably going to be comprehensive, well rounded, insightful – and independent. Whether it’s on the viability of a product or the effectiveness of marketing messages, the analysts can provide an assessment and evaluation of an IT vendor’s proposition and how it will play in the market.

Then comes the benefit that most PR folk are familiar with - the analysts’ exposure in the media. If we look at last year, Gartner, IDC and Ovum were featured in the UK media over 3,700 times. Sometimes it’s coverage on a press release they’ve issued, sometimes it’s a fact from a research report but often it’s individual analysts being quoted as a result of a call from a journalist.

Some analyst firms even publish analyst opinion pieces on the web and make them freely available to all (for example, Bloor’s www.it-director.com and Ovum) whereas others have regular columns, such as Quocirca with The Register, silicon.com and Computer Reseller News.

Changes to the mobile team at Gartner

Congratulations to Jason Chapman. We've just heard that he now leads Gartner's mobile and wireless team worldwide.

Plus Martin Gutberlet has joined the team. He will be focusing on network operator strategies and will lead Gartner's network operator research in Europe.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Ex Ovum analysts start up on their own

Two of Ovum's software analysts have left to form their own analyst firm.

Neil Ward-Dutton and Neil Macehiter started up Macehiter Ward-Dutton a few weeks ago. They just revamped their website - http://www.mwdadvisors.com/index.php - and I've just started this blog so it seems opportune to do a post on them.

All the best guys.

Friday, March 11, 2005

One easy source - news from the analyst firms

Check out Industry Analyst Reporter from Tekrati (it's one of my favourite links on the right).

Tie its site in with a RSS feed and you get all the news from the analysts pretty much as it comes out.

It's great.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

My first blog

So, I've been getting more and more into the blog world over the past couple of months and have decided that it's about time to take the plunge and go public with my own blog.

I'll come clean right away about my commercial interests. I run a PR business and we're 100 per cent focused on industry analyst relations.

Those in the techology world will come across these guys all the time. For of you who aren't (or don't), industry analysts are a hybrid combination of market researcher and management consultant. For various reasons, there are a huge number that focus on the technology and telecoms market (it is worth asking 'why?' and I will do a separate post sometime explaining).

My life is spent helping TMT companies recognise the value of the industry analysts and helping them communicate more effectively with them.

My objective with this blog? To share my views and opinions on tech PR and to highlight some of the great work that others are doing in this field for sure. Most important though is to stop sitting on the sidelines and join in what seems to be an incredibly exciting revolution in communication.