Forrester expands European mobile team

Forrester Research is extending its European mobile team with the hire of Jenny Lau.

Jenny will be based in London, advising mobile operators on strategic issues
like mobile commerce, 3G mobile networks and services, and enterprise
mobility. She will also be providing strategic advice to mobile telecom vendors and firms looking to launch mobile services.

IT publisher and analyst firm link up to create research business

Situation Publishing, the firm behind IT news site The Register, is joining forces with Freeform Dynamics, the company recently launched by Dale Vile (previously with Quocirca).

The two organisations are readying a joint primary research business that will launch early next year.

This move allows Situation Publishing to offer a new range of research-related services to IT vendors looking to exploit its customer base (The Register has more than 3.3 million unique readers per month).

According to Dale, the joint venture will provide Freeform Dynamics with the capability to conduct global telephone based research as well as giving it access to "a highly interactive online pool of IT pros for electronic research" - something which will be crucial given the company's stated approach to industry analysis is to "rely heavily on input from IT and business professionals."

It’s an interesting move but is Dale now effectively becoming a pseudo-analyst whose job is to provide stories for The Register? Does it mean the research is going to be slanted to provide obvious media hooks?

He says no. In fact, these were some of the reasons for establishing a JV rather than having Situation Publishing invest direct in Freeform Dynamics.

“News publishing and industry analysis are two totally different types of business. They have very different types of relationships with clients and the vendor community as a whole. Freeform Dynamics itself must therefore remain independent as an industry analyst firm to be effective. The JV approach gives both parties the ability to jointly invest in the common element, primary research execution, without confusing their respective core business activities.”

Dale also sees the JV approach providing other benefits. “Keeping it separate from Freeform Dynamics means we can potentially provide a service to other industry analyst firms who might benefit from primary research input into their activities but do not have the operational infrastructure to execute themselves."

So, does it make sense? Well, another analyst firm with the ability to conduct primary research can only be good for the industry. It means more choice for vendors, providing them with another alternative to the global analyst firms.

Given Freeform Dynamic's belief in open source research, we also hope that this move means even more trustworthy and independent research is going to be available free of charge to techonology buyers and users.

More on new analyst firm Freeform Dynamics

I had lunch with Dale Vile earlier in the week to discuss the launch of his new analyst company, Freeform Dynamics.

Described as "a UK-based industry analyst and research organisation that investigates and reports on the business impact of developments in the IT and communications (ITC) markets across Europe and the USA", Dale and his wife Helen "want to provide objective input for those involved in ITC procurement and implementation based on the most credible source possible - the opinions and experiences of their peers."

They have identified three key trends which they believe "are conducive to more informed and objective technology related decision-making." These are:

a) The increasing amount of quality information available free of charge (especially as more analyst firms adopt an open source approach). It's now easier than ever to find "solid, objective and authoritative material at no cost."

b) The growing number of interactive forums on the web (eg blogs, news sites surveying their readership, special interest groups creating discussion forums) so "the web is therefore now as much about learning from your peers as it is about accessing material from suppliers, experts and commentators."

c) Customers wising up to the imposed industy view, recognising "that new categories and their associated vocabulary often map onto the main selling agendas of a few large players rather than the genuine needs and priorities of mainstream businesses."

These trends have been taken into account when designing the business, even through to the name. "Freeform Dynamics reflects our unconstrained freeform approach to analysing industry dynamics. We refer to widely accepted categorisation and vocabulary where it enhances communication, but put the emphasis on delivering jargon free output using the business of practical need as the point of reference rather than the industry agenda."

And Freeform will be making its own research available free of charge via its website. "We are fully embracing this trend and would encourage vendors to fund or sponsor independent research that may then be put into the public domain for the benefit of all."

And it's mostly through primary research (rather than consulting) that Dale sees the company making its money. As part of this, Freeform Dynamics has created a joint venture with Situation Publishing, the publishing house behind The Register. I'll post on that separately.

Updated: Quocirca loses another analyst

This time it's Jon Collins. He's leaving the analyst world completely
(at least for a few months) to go and work on a project in the music
world. It's all "hush hush" at the moment but I'm sure if you keep an
eye on his blog, Jon will be writing about it as soon as he can go public.

Importantly for Quocirca directors Clive Longbottom and Bob Tarzey,
Jon's exit is completely unrelated to the recent departure of co-founder Dale Vile. Of course it now means Quocirca has another slot to fill and as we hear business is good, I'm sure that's something they'll be looking to do sooner rather than later.

Update (January 26 2006):
Jon's been helping Mike Oldfield write his autobiography.

Ovum to appoint head of "industry intelligence"

Phil Codling has been explaining to me some changes over at Ovum.

The firm has been moving towards a 'practice structure' in which services and expertise are organised into more logical groupings. One of these is "Industry Intelligence", which combines Phil's Holway service with Ovum Euroview, run by Douglas Hayward.

Ovum is now hiring for a Practice Leader-IT Services. This person will fulfil the (currently vacant) role of head of the Industry Intelligence practice "as well as potentially taking a more 'holistic' view of what Ovum does across Software and IT Services."

When asked if Ovum was planning to launch a new pan-European IT Services practice, Phil was clear that there's no plan for the new hire to run a specific new service.

Cathren Whelton leaves Ovum

Cathren Whelton has left Ovum in the past couple of weeks.

Officially, the PR department is now going to be responsible for working with vendors and agencies to set-up analyst briefings.

Yankee Group gets sold again

Yankee Group has been sold yet again.

Private equity firm Alta Communications has acquired it from Decision Matrix Group, another private equity company.

Outsell has a fairly upbeat assessment of the purchase.

Will it have an impact over here? I'm sure Duncan and Armadgeddon will have some interesting views on that. I'm looking forward to reading them.

Ovum update - recent developments

Duncan Chapple's got a nice overview post on recent developments at Ovum.

Quocirca analyst starts new firm

Dale Vile, who left Quocirca earlier this year, is to launch his new company before the end of the year.

Freeform Dynamics is being positioned as "a new and different research and analysis organisation."

More to follow in a few weeks...

Arrival at Forrester

Forrester has bolstered its EMEA IT services team with the arrival of Euan Davis.

Previously with Yankee Group, Euan is joining Andrew Parker's team and will be looking after BPO.

Thanks to Kim Horner for the tip.