END OF SUMMER SALE 

We would love to get your feedback, so please share any ideas you have on this upcoming subscription in 2009! 

Subscription Description:  This subscription service takes an in-depth look into the Public Safety industry, particularly as it relates to IT and telecom spending, trends, insights, and announcements. The Public Safety Vertical is a subset of state and local government and includes fire, law enforcement/police (includes corrections), EMT, and other related-offices as it pertains to keeping the public safe and secure.   Ongoing data and analysis is provided on public safety investments in telecommunications, information technology, network hardware, and other important telecom and IT categories. Expenditure forecasts are broken down by law enforcement, Fire, and EMS Services.   

• Forecast on IT by 6 IT categories
• Forecast on Telecom by Wireline and Wireless (Voice, Data, and Equipment)
• Forecast on IT by Law Enforcement, Fire, and EMS
• Forecast on Telecom by Law Enforcement, Fire, and EMS
• Forecast on IT by Federal vs. State & Local
• Forecast on IT by the Homeland Security Department
• Forecast on Radio Systems and Devices
• Report on Funding and Grant Trends in Public Safety
• Report on E9-1-1 Services Market
• Report on Trends in Radio Systems and Devices in Public Safety
• Report on Interoperability Solutions
• Report on Mobility in Public Safety
• Report on Alert Notification and Disaster Preparedness in States and Cities
• Report on Cool Technologies in Public Safety
• Primary Research-Survey of Public Safety Decision-Makers and End-Users (Survey results in the reports)
• Reports on Latest Vendor Announcements on Public Safety (4 to 6)
• And More+

Listen to How the Economy is Affecting the IT Market

Click on the below graphic to listen to my colleague, Kneko Burney, discuss how the latest economical indicators are affecting today's overall IT market.  It is a good listen and you can also listen to it on your iPod.  Enjoy!

The overall housing crisis is expected to hit the IT market to some extent either through tighter lending practices to businesses or consumers slowing spending on gadgets and services.  At this point, it is expected to affect consumer spending more so than business.  I wanted to share a few interesting tidbits and facts about the current housing and banking market pulled from Financial press releases, Bloomberg Data, and RealtyTrac:

• Citigroup and Washington Mutual have recently reported losses, while Wells Fargo reported profits
• Countrywide Financial Corp. and IndyMac Bancorp have closed down, Bank of America purchased Countrywide becoming the largest lender
• Citigroup is the largest bank in the U.S., is expected to disclose earnings tomorrow
• More than 100 businesses/banks have closed, been sold, or halted operations due to the subprime lending practices
• California ranked Second amoung U.S. states in June for foreclosures (According to RealtyTrac Inc.)
• Foreclusures nationwide increased 53 percent in June compared to June of 2007
• More than $400 billion of losses and writedowns have been liked to the U.S. housing slump, according to Bloomberg data

I hope everyone enjoyed the July 4th weekend and festivities!  Well, it is that time of year to start our marketing and strategic planning for next year.  As we do this, I think it is important to understand what the decision-makers are thinking about.  In this case, let's talk about the greatest challenges they are faced with when it comes to IT and technology solutions.  We recently surveyed 1382 IT decision-makers and asked them "Which, if any, in your opinion represent the key IT challenges facing your firm in 2008?"

The answers are below.  As you can see in the chart, the top challenges facing these IT decision-makers include increasing the productivity of workers, lowering operating costs associated with IT systems, and improving their websites.  This being said, these are all good factors that can help guide your marketing messages, sales tactics, and strategic plans regarding your customers in late 2008 and 2009.  Others that topped the list include upgrading computers and managing customer relationships using the Internet.  What do you think about these challenges?  Will they be useful for your planning?  Please let me know if you have any ideas about this or other data we are collecting from decision-makers. 

IT Decision-Maker Challenges, 2008-2009

 Source: Compass Intelligence 04/08

Compass Intelligence (www.compassintelligence.com) recently surveyed 1383 IT decision-makers and asked them "Thinking about your company as a whole, which of the following carriers, if any, does your company or organization use for company-provided cell phones? Often companies give employees a choice of more than one carrier."  As you can see below, the numbers look really close to market share data that you see out there in the analyst world, of course the numbers may vary but the comparisons of the vendors is pretty close to what we see out there in the news and analyst reports.  AT&T and Verizon are running neck-and-neck in terms of the top choice of business IT decision-makers for cell phones, while Sprint runs a very distant 3rd.  T-Mobile hits 4th with about 11 percent of the respondents stating they use T-Mobile's cell phones. 

 Businesses today are really looking for those providers that can provide them business-oriented devices such as Blackberries, Treos, and others.  They are also looking for devices that can help with productivity.  We also asked these same decision-makers about their top challenges for 2008 and 2009 and the top choice selected (44 percent) was increasing productivity of the workers.  This being said, devices including cellphones, smartphones, handheld computing devices, and even laptops must address each industries specific productivity concerns.  Applications that are moving to a mobile environment will be very successful if they can be marketed and even give ROI on improving productivity with workers across industry.  This means some applications will have to be specific to the industry in which the business user is in.  For example an E-Prescription application on a Doctor's smartphone or handheld, or access to  Manufacturing Execution System for a Factory Floor Manager.  I would love to hear about your thoughts on the future of business applications, mobile and non-mobile.  Please let me know what you think.  Have a Happy Fourth of July!

U.S Business Decision-Maker Choice of Cell Phone Vendor, 2008 (Sample Size: 1383)

Source: Compass Intelligence, 06/08

There are a growing number of online websites that provide a network of lenders to support loans for small businesses.  Now these sites are interesting because it is not banks or financial institutions loaning the money, but everyday people like you and me.  This is not only cool because it gets the banks out of the equation, but the people lending the money can also track the progress of the company and can feel very involved in the success of that company it lended the funds to.  Some of these sites are microloan sites for personal loans and some are specific to projects or small businesses.  Borrowers can state their case or cause and hope that a lender will bite.  There are several different business models out there with these sites, but all are interesting!  Here are a few of the interesting sites that I found:

www.zopa.com

www.prosper.com

www.fynanz.com

www.greennote.com

www.kiva.com

There are so many cool online tools and Web 2.0 (FREE) applications popping up on the Internet!  So today, I just want to talk about a few and share some of the links I think can be quite useful for the SOHO (Small Office Home Office) and Small Business.  Below are a list and links to a few that are interesting:

• www.dovico.com - Tracking and Timesheet Management Software.  They have a free 30-day trial for the hosted ASP solution.
• www.zoho.com - This is the coolest and most popular in my opinion.  This has numerous FREE and paid for solutions for the SOHO business.  Includes solutions such as a word processor (Like MS Word), Spreadsheet creator (Like Excel), Presentation creator (like Powerpoint), project management, CRM, and many other online tools. 
• www.google.com/analytics - Free monitoring of your website traffic
• www.google.com - Other free software on Google includes Google Earth for maps and views of the earth, Picasa for editing photos, StarOffice (word processing and more), and many others.  Those specific to productivity include Blogger, Calendar, Docs, Sketchup, and GooglePack...a collection of free software for your PC.
• www.openoffice.org - Rivals MS Office and its Free, this is an opensource free download that allows users to create text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, diagrams, and databases, as well as HTML and XML documents
• NetNote Client - Free software that allows you to create notes on your desktop and send to others. It has network capabilities (send and receive notes, Instant Messaging), text notes, audio attachments, alarms and models (templates).  http://www.download.com/NetNote-Client/3000-2347_4-10001853.html
• www.carbonite.com - Perfect for the SOHO or small business needing to back up their files remotely...all files are backed up online...so if you crash you can login later and restore all files or just the ones you want.  We actually use it at Compass Intelligence and it is great!
• www.skype.com - of course many of know about Skype, but did you know it is great for chatting, video phone calls, and more...this is great for the virtual office and staying connected to colleagues

 Of course you can always go to sites such as CNET and ZDNet to see a large list of free software, but just be careful where you look and be aware of those 30-day trials that ask for credit card information.

Essentially, there is a growing list of free software and free online tools (Web 2.0) that are popping up everywhere across the web. I will keep my eyes and ears open for any new ones and send an update next quarter on the latest cool tools on the web.  If you have any others you would like to add, please send me a note or comment, as I am sure others would like to know.  Until next time....

Stephanie

This week I want to feature a recent report that came out last week called "The Cross-over Mobile Device: Is meeting both Personal and Professional Needs Possible?"

 In this report, Kneko Burney (President of Compass Intelligence) and Dan Blacharksi (Compass Contributing Analyst) discuss the future of mobile devices/phones where devices will have both consumer and business or personal and professional features, functionality, and applications.  We all know today all vendors generally separate the market (consumer and business) when developing, designing, marketing, and even selling phones.  These distinct differences in the future will no longer be viable due to the nature that personal phones are becoming business phones and business phones are becoming personal.

Let's face it we all know we use our business phones to make personal calls and to chat, etc.  We also use our personal phones to do the same.  Also, recent Compass Intelligence also found that there are a great deal of wireless users that have more than one device, generaly 2 phones or 1 phone and maybe a wireless data card or something similar. 

Wireless users are also putting more pressure and heavily influencing the buying decisions within corporate America.  This was greatly seen in the Health Care market about 5 years back...the newer generation of doctors and nurses were demanding to have access and use wireless in the hospital for work purposes.  The current generation will also influence the future of devices.  Most of todays teens and college students chat and IM like it is a natural conversation, that is why we are seeing more and more corporate IM and messaging platforms being rolled out in the recent years.

Another factor in this report is the impact of the iPhone and the future of open or unlocked phones.  The iPhone has really put pressure on all wireless device manufacturers and even service providers.  It came out with a bang and actually without even looking at the numbers has greatly influenced the future of the mobile device in terms of look, feel, functionality, and form.  Also, the fact that future devices will be unlocked and will also be open makes way for more personal applications to be placed on these devices with or without the permission of Corporate America.  I am sure this will be a future concern in terms of the management and security of devices and I am sure vendors are already working on plans to prepare for these challenged.

In the end, the future mobile device will require personal and corporate features.  Businesses will need to consider end-users wants and needs, BOTH personal and professional, before upgrading and buiying new mobile devices, smartphones, and even handheld computing devices.

Sorry about those Spurs, I was really pulling for them.  KOBE!!!