Tuesday, February 27, 2007

NU list defined

The burning question: What is the NU list, how do you get on it and how do you move up? Well, picture your standard bell curve, it represents the distribution of parties as measured by some qualitative or quantitative value. Our company takes a more subjective stance in the field of new technologies in the messaging, security, compliance, storage management, and esdiscovery markets and looks at who is leading in innovation, marketing, management, flexibility, relevance etc.

We take these factors into account and place companies along this curve, to the extreme left are companies whose technology just has not found its stride in the marketplace, there is not a large enough need, management is struggling to find direction, the story is not defined and a myriad other reasons why they are in the early stages of "hotness" Then there is the incline of the bell, the hottest zone to be in. These are the technologies that are out there seeing the big names in the industry, making meetings, getting their products in for evaluation, closing deals, supporting their partners, training new people on their technology, wowing conference attendees. These are the technologies we ride with. We help bring new technologies to the mainstream community.

Then either through merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, or shear success, companies reach the top of the bell curve, and then begin to trickle into the downward slope. Unfortunately this is when we need to say "adieu." For whatever reason, it does not work out. The market becomes saturated, management loses the start-up mentality, the partner community is flooded, Costco starts selling the product...whatever happens, it happens, we wish you the best, it was a great ride but this is business and there are 20 other technologies that are on the upswing.

So that is how we define the list, or that is my take on it at least. We love being in this position, we maintain contacts with the big corporations, the forward thinking corporations, the progressives, and we bring them dependable technologies that are doing new things but work and are trustworthy and won't cut bait at the first sign on trouble.

We have fun, we are motivated by new ideas, new technology, and most of all, new leads...

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