29West

Updated High Performance Messaging Report

TIBCO LogoJust 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

Low Latency Messaging Event

29west logoThe good people at 29West have asked Lustratus to moderate a panel discussion at their upcoming Zero Latency Tour event in London on Tuesday 19th May.  It promises to be a good discussion as the participants all have solid real-world experience of building and implementing low-latency systems.  We should have a lively debate attempting to answer the basic questions of how close to zero latency you can get and how you go about achieving it.

Speakers include:

  • Nigel Woodward, Global Director Financial Services, Intel
  • Martin Thompson, Director of Engineering, Tradefair
  • George Andreadis , Head of AES Liquidity Strategy, Europe, Credit Suisse
  • Mark Reece, eTrading Solutions Architect, HSBC

A similar event is also taking place in New York… Continue reading

TIBCO eats itself

censored 2Cannibalization.  You don’t get to see that very often unless something strange has happened.  No, I’m not talking about the act of eating the flesh of the same species.  Instead I’m referring to where a vendor eats into its own sales by promoting one of its products ahead of another in the same market.  It is highly unusual for a vendor to be willing to sacrifice sales of one product line to increase another.  In my experience these things usually happen through some form of mistake or oversight in planning.  However, that doesn’t appear to be the case with TIBCO’s recent announcement of the TIBCO Messaging Appliance.

As we suggested in our… Continue reading

REPAMA Guide Now Online

The Lustratus REPAMA Guide (1.00)Despite being available in “beta” form to REPAMA users for some time, I finally got round to packaging up a publicly downloadable version of the Lustratus REPAMA Guide. This can be downloaded from Lustratus.com for no charge.

I should say a big thank you to clients, colleagues and everyone else who has provided feedback on the guide, which studies should be included and how they should be presented.

So “Thank you”!

And for those looking to understand the product marketing and go-to-market strategies of TIBCO’s competitors in the High Performance Messaging space – specifically  Solace Systems’ Content Router, 29West’s LBM and IBM’s WebSphere MQ LLM – I’ve also put the High Performance Messaging REPAMA Segment Analysis Study in… Continue reading

An “average” marketing strategy

Mean.  It’s a great word isn’t it.  But what does mean, mean?  If you see what I mean.  It’s either hateful, the intended meaning of something or, as I want to use it here – an average.  In this case it’s the “average” marketing strategy for a specific marketing segment.  What would be the value of knowing the “average” marketing strategy for any number of strategic marketing elements for the segment in which you compete?

i.e. on average for your market segment who is the ideal target customer organisation? On average what job roles do your competitors target? On average which vertical markets are favoured? On average who does your competition see as… Continue reading

You can spin, but you can’t hide

Footprint in the snowWe spend a lot of time at Lustratus looking into the performance of early market companies.  Quite often these companies brief us and tell us how well they’re doing and how well they’re latest re-positioning is being received in the market.  Most of the time I believe them.  And what if I don’t, what can I do to prove/disprove their claims?  As an early market company they’re typically not public and probably don’t have to file detailed financial results.

The answer lies in the footprints they leave in the Internet snow.  That and something that we refer to as the Press Release Boilerplate Evolution.   As you probably know, the boilerplate is the short,… Continue reading

“We all target the same prospects”

We all target the same prospects!

I hear this a lot in the high-tech marketing world.  Organisations tell me that when they are prospecting they and their competitors target the same organisations and the same people.

I want to highlight how assumptions like this can be very dangerous in competitive marketing.  It’s lazy to assume that your closest competitors are saying the same thing to the same people as you are targeting.

Sure there are major similarities in most highly competitive markets but when Lustratus studies the protagonists and their relative offerings in detail we always find significant clear blue water between them.

We developed the REPAMA methodology to bring a little clearer insight into competitive marketing. … Continue reading

A quantum of Solace? (Systems)

jamesbondSo, as I mentioned in my previous blog that Lustratus has been looking at companies in the High Performance Messaging (middleware) space recently.  A couple of ex-colleagues from Sonic (Dave Clare and Annalisa Sarasini) have both found themselves in this space, with Solace Systems and 29West respectively.  My colleague Steve Craggs is looking to produce a paper on the space so we arranged a couple of briefings.

Steve and I have both served our message oriented apprenticeship.  Steve ran IBM’s MQSeries division for many years and I was part of the team at Sonic Software that brought SonicMQ to market and then launched the ESB category. So we both understand the manic vendor space… Continue reading

Focus and 8 fingered gloves

7peachlingsgloveI remember using the phrase “You’re marketing 8 fingered gloves” with a client a few years ago.  And without wanting to show any disrespect to those unfortunate or fortunate enough to have more than 5 digits on each hand, I think it illustrates perfectly the dilemma that some technology vendors face.

Imagine you are the VP Marketing for Octodigit Inc.  – a manufacturer of 8 fingered gloves for men.  Your market is pretty small.  Really small in fact.  Getting new customers is quite a chore and involves some incredibly detailed research, focus and a lot of leg work.  However, when you find a prospect – an octodigit (or whatever the term is) male who… Continue reading


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  • Gravatar icon of Danny Goodall Danny Goodall
    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...
  • Gravatar icon of Sarah Bourne Sarah Bourne
    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 ...
  • Gravatar icon of Danny Goodall Danny Goodall
    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...
  • Gravatar icon of Jacques Talbot Jacques Talbot
    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 ...
  • Gravatar icon of Steve Craggs Steve Craggs
    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...
  • Gravatar icon of Pete Logan Pete Logan
    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 ...
  • Gravatar icon of Danny Goodall Danny Goodall
    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' ...
  • Gravatar icon of Blake Dournaee Blake Dournaee
    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...
  • Gravatar icon of SaaS SaaS
    April 14, 2010 (2:57)
    The Decision Making Unit for Cloud Computing Nice Technology Related Blog. Will visit again.
  • Gravatar icon of Zaki Usman Zaki Usman
    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.