Truth Denied? The Software Appliance Revisited.
As I mentioned in my last blog entry I’ve had a minor disagreement with Blake Dournaee of Intel over…
…whether spin was used in the naming of the product category in which the folks at Intel have placed their SOA security/acceleration technology. You can read about our failure to find common ground as well as our apparent inability to handle each other’s blog comments correctly here. But whilst I was writing that blog I thought I’d dwell a little and idly speculate at what might lie behind Intel’s naming strategy. And before I do so I have to declare an interest. I am a big fan of the marketing techniques that Intel has used here. It’s a smart… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, positioning, product category, product name, SOA and Integration | 
appliance, competition, depositioning, intel, positioning, soa, soa expressway, software appliance | 
2 CommentsTruth Denied?
Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery – or something like that. Anyway I’m sure Blake Dournaee of Intel will forgive me for borrowing the title for this blog…
…from his own “Truth Denied” blog entry on his Truth in SOA blog. Follow the link and you’ll see that Blake is a little aggrieved at a previous blog entry of mine where I suggested that Intel was using spin when describing something as both an appliance and software.
Now I’m also a little aggrieved because in his post Blake seems to suggest that he attempted to wield the sword of truth by posting a clarifying comment on this site but, he claims that his comment… Continue reading
Cloud Computing REPAMA – Taxonomy and the Role of Professional Services – Part 2
I’m continuing the REPAMA Segment Analysis Study into the Cloud Computing market attempting to arrive at a solid market segmentation and two things have become very clear.
Firstly, every vendor with a remotely related proposition appears to have added the word “cloud” to their product name, presumably in an attempt to bask in the reflected glory that cloud computing provides, perhaps in an effort to appease their investors. This means that there are a large number of vendors claiming to be part of specific segments that may or may not have legitimate claims. This makes the process I’m going through confusing and messy. And if I, as a marketing analyst am having problems, I wonder what sort of success a… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, cloud computing, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, marketing, Marketing Strategy, product category, product marketing, segmentation, taxonomy | brad buck, channel, cloud computing, competition, Danny Goodall, early market, Lustratus, marketing strategy, opencrowd, peter laird, positioning, product marketing, professional services, proposition segmentation, REPAMA, segmentation, Strategic Marketing, taxonomy, tendril inc. | Leave a commentUpdated High Performance Messaging Report
Just a quick note to say that the updated High Performance Messaging REPAMA Segment Analysis Study has been uploaded to the Lustratus site. It now contains the reverse-engineered product marketing strategy for TIBCO’s Messaging Appliance P-7500. Existing customers and Lustratus research subscription holders will already have been contacted with details of free upgrades.
Following on from the blog entry I made when the first version of the report was released I thought I’d show the updated value proposition below. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry TIBCO’s primary competitive focus is very unusual – it is TIBCO Rendezvous – one of its own products. The different approach to the market doesn’t stop there as you’ll… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, go-to-market, high performance middleware, marketing, positioning, product category, product management, product marketing, Vendor-Related Posts | 29West, competition, competitive, Danny Goodall, ibm, Lustratus, Messaging Appliance, middleware, product marketing, REPAMA, solace systems, Strategic Marketing, tibco | Leave a commentPositioning and the Positioning Statement
Positioning and the Positioning Statement
This page contains a summary of a series of blog entries I made during January and February 2009. It describes the format of the positioning statement that we use in the REPAMA competitive intelligence methodology. I refer to the concept of positioning and the positioning statement frequently so I wanted to pull them all together in once place. So here you are.
Danny Goodall
Links to Original Posts
The Positioning Statement
FOR… positioning element
WHO…positioning element
OUR…positioning element
IS A…positioning element
THAT PROVIDES…positioning element
UNLIKE…positioning element
OUR PRODUCT…positioning element
Part 1 – Positioning
Happy 2009! I’ve been in debate with a number of correspondents about the layout and format of the positioning statement… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, differentiation, go-to-market, ideal customer, marketing, Marketing Strategy, positioning, product category, product marketing, product name, reason to buy, Uncategorized, usp | alternative, audience, benefit, competition, competitive, competitor, customer pain, Danny Goodall, ideal customer, Lustratus, main benefit, messaging, offer category, positioning, positioning statement, primary alternative, primary reason to buy, product category, product marketing, product name, REPAMA, Strategic Marketing, target customer, unique sales proposition, usp | 1 CommentAn ESB is an ESB is an ESB – n’est pas?
As the saying goes, if it looks like a fish, smells like a fish and tastes like a fish then the chances are that it is a fish. Likewise by any measure the products in the recent REPAMA study into the ESB market segment certainly appear to be ESBs but why then is none of the vendors content with describing their products simply as an “ESB”.
As the REPAMA Marketing Element Distribution (MED) chart below shows, the ESB vendors in the study (Microsoft ESB Guidance 1.0, Oracle Service Bus, Progress Sonic ESB, TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus) used the following adjectives, qualifiers, modifiers and euphemisms to describe the offer category of their “ESB”.
- A loosely-coupled messaging environment
- A comprehensive Enterprise… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, esb, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, positioning, product category, product marketing, SOA and Integration, Vendor-Related Posts | competition, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, competitive, Enterprise Service Bus, esb, Lustratus, marketing strategy, microsoft, Microsoft ESB Guidance, oracle, Oracle Service Bus, product category, progress software, Progress Sonic ESB, REPAMA, tibco, TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus | Leave a commentPart 5 – The “IS A [product category]” element from the positioning statement
Product Category
Continuing this series of blogs where we are looking at the positioning statement format that Lustratus uses in our REPAMA research methodology. In this blog entry we’re going to look at one of the elements that usually, but not necessarily, picks itself. This entry is looking at the “IS A [product category]” element here.
So as usual let’s look at the context of this element in the wider positioning statement.
FOR [the ideal customer] WHO [has this specific pain or problem] OUR [product name] IS A [product category] THAT PROVIDES [this main benefit and reason to buy] UNLIKE [the primary alternative or competitor] OUR PRODUCT [has this unique selling proposition].… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, esb, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, positioning, product category, product marketing | competition, Danny Goodall, esb, Lustratus, marketing strategy, positioning, positioning statement, product category, product marketing, REPAMA | Leave a commentPart 1 – The positioning statement
Positioning
Happy 2009! I’ve been in debate with a number of correspondents about the layout and format of the positioning statement that we use in the Lustratus REPAMA-based research. So I’m going to dedicate the next few blog entries to the positioning statement. I hope to answer the following questions.
- What is the positioning statement?
- Why use a positioning statement?
- What is the value of a positioning statement?
- What is the format of a positioning statement?
The first thing to say is that over the years, having worked with some of the best product marketing people in the industry, I’ve seen many different approaches to positioning and equally many different formats for positioning statements. Each of them,… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, ideal customer, marketing, Marketing Strategy, pain, positioning, product category, product marketing, product name, reason to buy, usp, Vendor-Related Posts | alternative, benefit, competition, competitive, competitor, Danny Goodall, ideal customer, Lustratus, main benefit, marketing strategy, oracle, pain, positioning, positioning statement, product category, product marketing, product name, REPAMA, Strategic Marketing, strategy, tibco, usp | 1 Comment
- On Informatica, Evangelism, Audience Strata and BIG-DATA
- The marketing strategies of open source versus closed source ESBs
- Part 2 – First output from REPAMATron – WSO2 versus FuseSource versus Talend versus the ESB market
- First output from REPAMATron – WSO2 versus FuseSource versus Talend versus the ESB market
- WSO2 – Fits in between Talend and FuseSource…
- WSO2, or rather one of its competitors, has thrown its hat into the ring
- Wordcount.org – it counts words…
Recent Comments
May 12, 2011 (12:01) The Goodall Technology Reading Ease Index - How Complex is Your Marketing Copy? Hmm. I really do like the name Sarah but what about my ego? If I were to call the index 'GoodRead...
May 12, 2011 (11:36) The Goodall Technology Reading Ease Index - How Complex is Your Marketing Copy? I suggest calling it the GoodRead Index. Maybe it's over-reaching a bit, but you'll just have to ...
October 14, 2010 (4:19) Truth Denied? The Software Appliance Revisited. I hope you could tell that I was being more than a little flippant here Jacques. Perhaps I should...
October 13, 2010 (1:56) Truth Denied? The Software Appliance Revisited. Allow me to disagrre. At a customer, we have used Datapower for years to process XML (BTW, it is ...
June 7, 2010 (4:38) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Pete,Thanks for your comments, and those of your colleague. I think Danny has answered the 'mar...
June 4, 2010 (4:03) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Hi,I'd very much like to develop a point made in the report where it is asserted that software ...
May 6, 2010 (12:35) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Thanks for your comment Blake. This is a marketing-focused blog that looks at different vendors' ...
May 5, 2010 (1:23) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Hello There - It seems that this is a very provocative report, especially with respect to the sta...
April 14, 2010 (2:57) The Decision Making Unit for Cloud Computing Nice Technology Related Blog. Will visit again.
October 16, 2009 (5:56) The Decision Making Unit for Cloud Computing Very interesting point of discussion. I would be very interested to hear your results.