Public sector guru Joe Dignan leaves Ovum

Joe Dignan, chief public sector analyst with Ovum, has decided it’s time to move on.

He’s now working for himself, focusing on smart cities, and is open for business.

That’s good news. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one thinking that Joe's departure left a big gap in the UK public sector analyst space.

IDC hires Philip Carnelley to cover Big Data and Enterprise Mobility

One of the best known and most well liked software analysts in Europe has got himself a new role.

Philip Carnelley has joined IDC as research director in its European Software Group. He will be covering enterprise mobility software platforms and applications, Big Data platforms, and middleware.

The company says he is "also tasked with writing and presenting on broader enterprise software trends and the impact of emerging technology areas as they relate to the European region."

That's got Philip covering two pretty hot areas and with a very broad forward looking brief. Still, his background suggests he won't let himself get carried away with the hype.

Philip has been in the enterprise software space now, first with Oracle and then as an analyst, for over 25 years. Until December, he was with PAC in the UK, responsible for software and application services. He's also worked with TechMarketView, Ovum and Gartner.

When I asked Philip why he'd joined IDC, he said: "I felt that leveraging IDC's global resources could take my work to a higher level. Also, it has a great European software and services team, many of whom I've worked with before. ‎For a 50-year old company, it's amazing how much it's changing. It's a very energising place to work right now." 

Philip continues as an associate with Knowledge Peers, the business networking and knowledge sharing organisation run by Chris Dines, ex CEO of Ovum.

Analyst moves: CCS Insight moves Geoff Blaber to lead growth in US

Telecoms and media analyst firm CCS Insight looks to have once again set its eyes on expanding into the US market.

Geoff Blaber, who started with the company in 2007, has been promoted to vice-president, Americas and re-located to San Francisco.

According to the company, “Geoff is there to set up the US office and support our client base in North America."

CCS Insight obviously sees gold in them thar West Coast hills. This level of commitment doesn’t come cheap.

It follows the appointment two and a half years ago of Jon Rockeman as business development director. Based in San Diego, his hiring seems to have been a success. Although the company doesn't provide any details, there are apparently a growing number of clients there.

When this is coupled with the ever increasing importance of Internet players in the world of mobile and the nature of CCS Insight’s business, it’s not hard to see why the company thinks it can benefit from having some full-time analyst feet on the ground rather than just flying the UK team in and out.

Shaun Collins, CEO said: "Having Geoff leading our efforts in North America builds on the strong traction we’ve already established in the region. We are already seeing the first positive signs of Geoff’s hard work on the west coast. This signals the start of the next phase in CCS Insight global expansion.”

By the way, if you rated Geoff as an analyst, don’t despair. The company promises that he will continue in this role.

Geoff said: "Actually, being on the ground in the US now means I'll be covering a broader range of topics, not just mobile software platforms and semiconductors, to reflect our increasingly diverse client and prospect base out here.”

Analyst Moves: Frost & Sullivan hires Sheridan Nye to cover European enterprise comms

Sheridan Nye has joined Frost & Sullivan as a senior analyst covering the Enterprise market. She was previously a senior analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media where she covered enterprise verticals.  

At Frost & Sullivan, Sheridan will be looking more broadly at the European enterprise ICT market including enterprise mobility, M2M and the Internet of Things.

When we asked about why she'd decided to join the company, Sheridan said: "Frost & Sullivan has hundreds of analysts specialised in vertical industries. My role is to combine this depth with our ICT expertise in Europe to produce quality insight for clients. I'm looking forward to contributing to Frost's growing presence in the enterprise field."

You can find her on LinkedIn and read her Frost & Sullivan blog here. 

Analyst moves: ABI hires Malik Saadi to lead semiconductor innovation practice

ABI has hired Malik Saadi from Informa to become practice director for semiconductor innovation.

Malik will be covering hot topics in the semiconductor industry and related applications including telecoms and consumer electronics.

Before joining ABI, Malik had been with Informa Telecoms & Media for 12 years, most recently as principal analyst covering mobile innovation. During his time with Informa, he covered a wide range of areas including devices, networks & infrastructure, and multimedia services.

Commenting on Malik's appointment, ABI's chief research officer Stuart Carlaw said: "Malik brings significant industry presence and huge amounts of relevant experience to our expanding best-of-breed research team. His skills will allow us to deepen our semiconductor coverage and also expand into new markets that are at the forefront of the future connected world.”

Heavy Reading and Pyramid Research find new owners, new investment

Without seeming to attract a great deal of attention, two analyst firms, Heavy Reading and Pyramid Research, have recently got new owners.  

Both companies - which are telecoms specialists - had been owned by UBM.

Heavy Reading is the analyst arm of Light Reading which has been bought back by Stephen Saunders, one of Light Reading's original founders. UBM will retain a significant minority stake in the business. Neither the sale price nor the size of the retained shareholding were disclosed. UBM had owned Light Reading since 2005 when it bought the company for $27m 

Read this piece from Light Reading to find out more about Stephen’s plans, which include adding new analysts.  If you take a look at the full story, you will also find an explanation from Paul Miller, CEO of UBM Tech, about why the company is retaining a share.

Also worth checking out is an article in Folio magazine which explains that UBM sold Light Reading because "it did not offer big enough opportunities going forward."  The author, Bill Mickey, includes more information he got from UBM as well as Stephen Saunders.

Meanwhile, Pyramid Research has been acquired by Progressive Digital Media for $3.3 million in cash. 

  

Simon Pyper, chief executive of Progressive, said: "Pyramid has a well regarded brand name, a portfolio of high quality data assets and moreover, an expanding presence in some of the world’s fastest growing markets.”

UBM bought Pyramid Research in 2008 for $8 million..  

Pyramid is the second established IT analyst firm that Progressive has bought in recent years.  In 2012, it bought Kable, the UK public sector ICT specialist.

451 hires ex Ovum, Gartner chief to lead global research

It was good to hear from Brett Azuma last week. He got in touch to let me know he’s just been appointed to lead the 60-strong analyst team at 451 Research. 

If you don’t know him already, Brett’s an experienced and well-respected leader.  He’s previously held senior positions at Ovum, where he was managing director, and Gartner, where he was group vice president/chief analyst. 

At 451, (where his official title is senior vice president, research), Brett will be providing leadership, direction and operational management to the company’s analyst team. This includes responsibility for the research agenda and analyst process as he is tasked with ensuring that 451 Research “continues to be insightful, with a focus on innovation; to be objective, reliably thorough and accurate; and most importantly to ensure that 451 delivers value to our clients.”

Brett’s very clear that as far as he's concerned, his team is already doing a great job. Brett’s focus will be on helping guide the team successfully into the future, getting it ready for the next wave of growth. He sees opportunities for 451 Research to bring together resources to provide new and differentiated services to customers, for example by coupling 451 Research’s qualitative research and analysis services with the quantitative data resources owned by other divisions of The 451 Group.

We can also expect to see more research being written by Brett himself.  He acknowledges that he's looking forward to getting out in the field again as an analyst. While it’s early days, he’s also got some new and interesting angles around the impact, opportunities and challenges that the Internet of Things may have on enterprise IT infrastructure.  

So, congratulations to Brett on the new role and to 451 for a good hire.  Over the past few years, 451 has grown steadily in size and influence through organic growth and acquisition. What does the future hold?  Well, we’re looking forward to learning more as Brett gets his feet under the table.  

IDC telecoms chief leaves

This week saw Chris Lewis (@chr1sLew1s) leave IDC and set up his own analyst firm, Lewis Insight.

At IDC, Chris was group vice president, international telecoms and networking. He's also held senior research leadership roles at Ovum and Yankee Group.
 

LewisInsight open for business today,looking to leverage almost 30 years of telecom and related industry experience!
— Chris Lewis (@Chr1sLew1s) June 6, 2013

Ovum: New leader, enterprise growth - but what's next?

Thanks to Claire Booty, I had the opportunity of meeting Steve Hotham, the new Ovum MD at the recent Ovum Industry Congress. 

He gave a good performance (particularly for someone who’d only been in the job for 15 days at the time) and was ably supported by two of his key lieutenants, Ian Charlesworth, director of IT research and analysis, and Richard Mahony, director of Telecoms research and analysis.

Steve cleared up some obvious questions. He’s been brought in to run Ovum. It's business as usual. There will be no merger or integration of Ovum with other Informa businesses.

He also confirmed that Ovum’s Telecoms division and Informa Telecoms & Media will not be merged (although he acknowledged that some back-office administrative functions – not related to research and consulting - are being combined to take advantage of economies of scale). 

Steve comes across as a mature and experienced business leader.  Despite his low-key manner, he is obviously excited about the opportunity to get his teeth into Ovum and make it a success.

It's also very apparent he is an Informa man and for Ovum, that's no bad thing. 

Steve very clearly understands what is expected of him and of Ovum.  It’s the kind of clarity that comes when someone has worked for a company at senior levels for a lengthy period of time. There is deep trust and respect on both sides.  Having someone like this at the top is likely to pay dividends for Ovum in the longer term.

Judging by Richard and Ian's contributions to the conversation, they still have huge passion and commitment for their respective divisions.  There is no sense of disappointment at having missed out on the top job. (Nor from Eamonn Kennedy, director of tools & insights, who – in spite of having just flown in from India - was on good form when I bumped into him later). 

They spoke eloquently and at length about Ovum’s capabilities, the experience of their teams, product innovations, the way analysts work across teams and divisions, and the company’s agility.

Very interesting and positive to see was Ovum’s willingness to start sharing information on the scale of its work in the enterprise market (i.e. with technology buyers and users).

The company says the IT division now has 15,000 registered individuals, from 650 enterprise customers, on its IT Knowledge Centre (the research portal).  In 2012, it was carrying out about one consulting project a week for enterprise clients.

There is also a clear strategy to invest in growing the enterprise business. This is focused on key vertical markets including public sector, financial services and communications & media.

This is good news for Ovum. Having a substantial and growing enterprise base gives any analyst firm clout.  

Many analyst companies claim to influence buyers but very few have been successful at persuading technology buyers to actually purchase research and consulting.

Those which can prove they act as trusted advisors to technology buyers are much sought after (not least by technology providers who believe some of that insight will rub off and help them sell more products). 

So with a growing enterprise business, other basics in place and most things apparently working well, what else might we see from Ovum as Steve gets to move forward with the business?

Here are a couple of suggestions:

Show some more ambition

Although Ovum still considers itself as small compared to many of its competitors, it’s not.

Based on the number of analysts it employs (about 120) the firm is certainly in the top five of general ICT analyst firms (three are obvious, we can debate who the fifth is if you wish).

Ovum has analysts and customers on four continents – Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia. These aren’t associates or affiliates or partners.  They are real employees. Unlike some analyst firms which use smoke and mirrors to give the idea that they’re global players, Ovum’s actually there.  

The company has a powerful parent. Informa is a £1.2 billion GBP ($1.8 billion USD) business. If it chooses to flex its financial muscle, there are plenty of small and mid-tier analyst firms out there which could be brought together to really build out Ovum’s reach in technology areas, verticals and regions.

For instance, looking regionally, Ovum is still relatively unknown in North America, at least in the IT space.  There are surely growth opportunities in Brazil. China remains a powerhouse that is underserved by global analyst firms. And let’s not forget the next wave of emerging markets which include Indonesia, South Africa, Vietnam, Mexico, Turkey and Argentina.

Ovum has pretended to be a small company for too long. It may just be time now to capitalize on all the advantages that size can bring. 

Tell a compelling, credible story about why Ovum is better than the rest

Most analyst relations people will tell you some firms stick out while others blend together in a grey mush. Gartner advises end-users. IDC is the numbers specialist. Current Analysis provides quick and easy-to-digest competitor intelligence. 451 does emerging technologies. Forrester has roles. 

What about Ovum? The firm definitely thinks it has some clear advantages over rivals and can articulate these at a divisional level.

What’s still lacking is a single unifying theme. Without that, Ovum may as well be two separate organizations – one focused on IT and the other on Telecoms. 

We won’t know what’s going to happen for a while. A period of stability for Ovum will be good but firms also need to evolve and grow.  Vision and leadership are crucial.  Steve needs time to understand the business properly, establish himself as leader and build his vision. Let's see what he comes up with. 

Footnote:

Also in the meeting were IIAR (@IIAR) board members Ludovic Leforestier (@lludovic) and Caroline Dennington (@cdennington) as well as IIAR member Patricia Valuch.  I’d encourage you to go and take a read of the IIAR view.

Claus Egge - Rest in Peace

Over the weekend, I heard that Claus has passed away. It's very sad.

We first came into contact when I was doing work with NetApp and Hitachi Data Systems. When Claus left IDC, we would then bump into each on the circuit, as you do.

I always found him friendly, interesting and insightful. He was a very nice man and seemed to know everything possible about the storage market!

You will be missed Claus. Rest in peace.