Blog before you run

Add comment December 14th, 2006 David Bush - Iasta

Blogging is still a relatively new concept to many people, so I thought a little explanation would be good for those who want to understand a little more about what all of this is.

Per Wikipedia:
A blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. The term “blog” is derived from “Web log.” “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

You can also read some detail about how to get the most out of blogs at these sites:

• Harvard RSS 2.0 Specification
• Technorati
• Blog Basics

If you are reading multiple blogs per day, it can get overwhelming to keep up. A smart idea, is to set up RSS feeds in your Internet browser. IE, Firefox and Opera all support this feature and all blogs should have the feed setup ready to push content to your browser. This will consolidate everything into one set of streams that can be reviewed very quickly to scan for topics of interest. IE7 has made real improvements here and allows toggling back and forth between favorites and feeds, you can also set how often the feeds are updated. As usual, it is late to the innovation game but does better than before.

You can also review profiles of blogs on Technorati which provides some interesting insight and statistics into a blogs’ value and penetration.

There is a never ending amount of information that can help making blog reading more efficient and useful. One thing I hate, is looking at the clock and seeing how late it is, because I have been clicking around until midnight! This sites have numerous speciality hints and hacks that can be really useful.

Entry Filed under: General

Arc Advisory Report Released

Add comment December 14th, 2006 David Bush - Iasta

This week, Arc Advisory published its 5 year look at supplier relationship management, which is available on their website for a fee. Among the issues addressed were:

Strategic Issues
ARC has sized the 2006 SRM market at $1.56 billion. The worldwide market for SRM is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2% over the next five years.

• How much of the Supplier Relationship Management market is attributable to each of the application categories?
• What application categories will experience the greatest growth?
• How do ERP providers “stack-up” against the integrated suite providers?
• How much of the revenue in the market is attributable to Software, Implementation Services, Maintenance & Support, and Software-as-a-Service?
• For each segment, who are the market leaders and how fast is the segment growing?

Even though I participated in the report data gathering and gave a briefing for Arc, I did not receive a copy of the report and do not have any opinions to share but would assume that Iasta is one of the 28 companies profiled in the report. I will say, however, that it is very nice to see some new blood and competition in the analyst industry.

Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, Functionality, General, Technology, e-Sourcing Marketplace