Research News & Articles

IDC (news, site) has a new research report available on growth of worldwide IT spending and while it's improving, it's not by much.

Big news in the analyst world today as Gartner announces it has entered into an agreement to acquire AMR Research.

"AMR Research is an excellent strategic fit for Gartner.  The firm is the market leader for research related to supply chain management, which is inextricably linked to IT and has become a central and growing issue for many organizations."

The acquisition offer which has been in the works for weeks, will cost Gartner US$ 64 million in cash. AMR is expected to bring in US$ 40 million in revenue for 2009.

A good deal for AMR as Gartner is 32 times the size of the smaller research firm. To Gartners 650 analysts and 1000 sales reps, AMR adds 40 analysts and 45 sales reps.

AMR's Chief Research Officer, Bruce Richardson, said in a post that he looks forward to becoming part of the Gartner family. He notes benefits such as access to a wide range of research, global reach, a wider audience and more verticals.

He also notes it will be business as usual for AMR -- for now at least.

There are few organizations that haven't considered -- and implemented -- SharePoint (news, site) in some manner. But as much as it has been implemented, it's still a confusing and often frustrating platform to work with.

Delivering just the kind of help these confused folk need, CMS Watch offers their latest research on SharePoint. The SharePoint Report 2009 helps organizations better understand where and how this platform might best fit in their organization. Here's what you can expect.

It has often been said that you can prove anything with statistics. If that is in fact the case, then the results of a new survey will prove what many people know already -- companies are still throwing money at web content management systems.

What is striking about this survey however, is that many companies this year are spending, or plan to spend, their CMS budgets on implementation rather than licensing.

The CMS Survey Report 2009, published by UK-based Econsultancy in association with Australia-based Squiz.net (news, site) also shows that companies are doing this because they don’t believe they are getting a high-enough ROI from their existing CMS.

A market research company is currently interviewing developers about the adoption of various technologies, particularly in open source circles. If you are:

• Programming professionally with open source tools, for revenue-producing work (that is, not inside-the-company-only apps)
• Regularly using Drupal, Joomla, SugarCRM, WordPress or phpBB
• In the U.S. or Canada
• Willing to answer some questions (both online and, ideally, by phone)

Head here to sign up.

Your information will be kept entirely confidential. Participants will be sent a summary of the results in early summer, and those who are interviewed by phone will receive a $25 Amazon gift certificate as a thank you for their time.

How many reports does it take before Web Content Management vendors change their errant ways and start listening to customers?

If you were to look at the recommendations from The Gilbane Group (news, site) and their Justifying Web Content Management: The Business Case and ROI report, then there is still a sharp learning curve ahead of many.

A simple four-word summary of the report, sponsored by SDL Tridion (news, site), might as well go “Keep it simple, stupid”. While that could be a tad simplistic -- and we’ll be looking at why -- it is a conclusion that keeps hitting the reader smack-bang in the face.

Okay, so we are already approaching the middle of April and most companies have already decided where they are going to invest and what programs they are going to drop over the course of this year

This probably means that a new survey from the Aberdeen Group (news, site) showing that 42% of those companies surveyed were going to increase Web Content Management budgets this year will probably have little or no effect on decisions that your company has already made – it being April and one third of the way into the year.

However, the survey entitled Maximize Business Results Online: How Web Content Management Technology is Transforming Digital Marketing  does have some interesting figures that might make companies think twice.

It is the time of recession, they say. We wonder: do companies still invest money in Web Content Management?

Recent research indicates that WCM will live despite the economic downturn. Better yet, the CMS industry may even experience growth.

When it comes to Digital Asset Management, most of the players are divided between low-end solutions and high-end solutions. According to the recent DAM report from CMS Watch, the mid-market offering is going by the way side. One would think this is somewhat odd, considering the middle market is probably the largest one out there.

Search engine marketing is one of the key strategies for online marketing. But doing it well still remains elusive to many organizations. The Aberdeen Group interviewed over 200 organizations to find out what it takes to create “best-in-class” search engine marketing.

Those that have kept up-to-date with the technology headlines know that we are being treated to a trifecta of mobile phone gadgetry that our grandparents likely never dreamed possible. There are also plenty of new and impressive consumer electronics products on the rise. So with times of such technological progress in full swing, why is newly released research pointing towards less adoption of these devices and the services available on them?

So it is true. We, as consumers, may know more about the competitive landscape for a product we want than the companies that sell that product. And all because we spend a lot of our time on the Internet using a little known thing called social networking.

Alas, it appears that product vendors may have caught on to our evaluation methods because they, too, are now starting to use social media technologies to improve knowledge management and, as a result, their sales figures.

Research and Markets, a research group that tracks the Enterprise CMS industry, has released a report that predicts the Enterprise CMS and Document and Records Management (DRM) markets will see drastic growth in the coming years, with sales numbers more than doubling from US$ 1.6 billion now to US $3.5 billion in 2012.

Gilbane has released a report that any organization catering to the global community needs to have a look at. It’s entitled Multilingual Communications as a Business Imperative: Why Companies Need to Optimize the Global Content Value Chain — don’t be swayed by the less-than-captivating and very long title. It’s chock full of qualitative research on how global businesses are creating, managing and publishing multilingual content. The short answer is that they’re not.

When we wrote about the Trampoline research on social networking we were a little bit skeptical about the results that were being given. With 88% of respondents saying they were ready to implement social networking in their organization, the number seemed a bit high. And of course we questioned a survey that comes directly from a social networking company.

Recently we had an opportunity to discuss the findings a little more with Rebecca Kemp of Trampoline Systems.