October 2006. Learning from the mistakes of early adopters, local governments today are bringing in private-sector partners for system installation and ongoing operations. Early desires to provide such services for free also are being replaced by sustainable business models.

Use of tax dollars to fund these wireless networks has been controversial on some fronts, as the benefits fall mostly to those who can afford laptops, home PCs and handhelds, as well as monthly access charges. In addition, local governments that tried to "own" the whole process found themselves under-funding and understaffing their operations.

June 2006. Opponents of such efforts, predictably carriers and cable companies, claimed such government-sponsored networks were unfair competition, and that local governments were not equipped to handle ongoing maintenance, customer service and technology upgrades. They even contended that such universal access would help solve the "Digital Divide" problem, although they never explained how lower-income people would benefit from Internet access when they probably could not afford a computer in the first place.

Time and experience have a way of weeding out the truth and consequences of such arguments. Local governments, many of whom saw economic development dollar signs, were not going to be dissuaded from there efforts to Wi-Fi their constituents.

Time and experience are now starting to demonstrate that perhaps these efforts were not as well thought out as they should have been.

July 2005. Is wireless Internet access the next public utility? Are public Wi-Fi spaces a public necessity, like water and sewer service? Should taxpayer dollars be used to help support municipal Wi-Fi networks that could be, and usually are offered by private companies? Should local governments be competing with the private sector to provide non-essential services like wireless Internet access? Twenty years from now, will wireless Internet access still be considered a non-essential service?

The arguments for such networks: lower broadband costs to users, community building, broadband access to areas not yet served by the private sector, income generation, economic development and even "solving the Digital Divide problem."

There is a difference, however, between a local government installing wireless communications for its own operations as opposed to setting up a wireless network for residents to go online for a fee - or for free.

Opponents of local governments providing wireless Internet access trot out their own litany of reasons why this is a bad idea: use of tax dollars for initial implementation, ongoing maintenance, staffing and eventual upgrades; unfair competition with the private sector; diversion of public funds from other important needs, such as homeless shelters or road maintenance; conflicts of interest; and even First Amendment considerations (If the local government controls the medium, can it restrict what information is carried over that medium, such as complaints about the local government?).

The Digital Divide defense may be the murkiest of the bunch.

Today's Wi-Fi users tend to be high-end professionals and high-income consumers, groups that realize the greatest benefits with their portable laptops or notebook PCs. The reality of deployments has been that they have been set up to serve the most lucrative areas, not the low-income areas.

How will public Wi-Fi solve the Digital Divide problem if a large percentage of low-income people do not own a computer or wireless hand-held device, or might not even be able to afford a $15-a-month subscription fee?

For comments please email: kanderberg@comnews.com

Desperate magazines

Ken Anderberg

May 29, 2008

Magazine publishers are starting to panic, with an increasing number selling editorial space, long a no-no in the industry. One only has to look at a few examples of magazines getting creative (read: desperate) to notice.

Take for example one tech-related monthly's recent cover. Well, actually, it wasn't a cover. It was an advertisement made to look like the cover, complete with the magazine's logo at the top. Only when you looked further did you see the real cover underneath the 4-page wraparound ad.

According to the Magazine Publishers of America: "The front cover and spine are editorial space. Companies and products should appear on covers only in an editorial context and not in a way that suggests advertisement. A magazine's logo should appear on advertising pages only in connection with advertisements for the magazine and its promotions or when an advertised product is touting editorial awards that it has won."

In another tech magazine, the editor recently used his column to lavishly describe and praise a company's product. The company's marketing department could not have done a better job. In fact, much of the editorial read like it came straight from a press release. Of course, the company was an advertiser.

Another tech magazine recently had regular editorial content "sponsored" by advertisers, complete with their logo on the opening page of articles.

Attempts like these clearly demonstrate the desperation publishers are feeling with the decline of advertising dollars. Such practices, however, only undermine both the publication and its advertisers.

Readers can see through such practices and will de-value the editorial content because of the perceived bias. If the editorial content is considered tainted, readers will abandon the publication for an independent source of information. The magazine loses and so do its advertisers.

For comments please email: kanderberg@comnews.com

Am I crazy?

Ken Anderberg

April 20, 2008

I'm not sure which is worse in today's publishing environment - being an editor or a publisher. As the former, you're constantly watching over your shoulder, waiting for the ax to fall on editorial jobs because of declining advertising revenues. As the latter, the pressure to bring in print advertising is daunting, while client marketing money bleeds off to the Internet.

To want to be both editor and publisher borders on insanity, one would think.

But here I am, now the editor and the publisher of Communications News. What was I thinking when I said "Yes" to the offer from my boss to take on the publisher duties?

Actually, I think Communications News sits in a very good place in the technology market. We've seen prominent weeklies disappear in the past year and others who are struggling. Quite simply, their overhead was/is killing them. High print circulations mean high advertising rates. Large editorial staffs mean high advertising rates. There were only a few tech vendors who could afford those high rates. So, good magazines like Network Computing and InfoWorld folded their print and retreated to the Web. Others will follow.

As I've met with dozens of vendors this year, one point has come up repeatedly - advertisers in this market absolutely understand the value of print, especially when it is combined with an integrated online presence. If that were not the case, why then would those who conduct trade shows be so interested in print publications as vehicles for their promotional ads? Why not just conduct their marketing via e-mail or on their sites? Because they know print works.

But high ad rates to justify artificially high circulations have driven many vendors out of print. Those vendors need frequency, with print an important cornerstone of their marketing efforts, but when the print rates are too high, they opt for the less-expensive online opportunities. It is then, however, that those vendors begin to lose their competitive edge.

Despite our name, Communications News is not about covering vendor news. We do some of that on this site but a monthly magazine cannot cover news. It couldn't 20 years ago and it can't today. But we can offer insights into how technology is being used in enterprise networks; we can showcase the challenges being faced by IT directors and the solutions they are implementing. That is our cause, and the best way to do that is in print.

Which is not to say we don't understand the value of online, as well. We now have a company Web team larger than any of the seven editorial staffs at Nelson Publishing, our parent company. This Web site was recently redesigned and repurposed and we are still adding features. This summer, for example, we will be debuting our new White Paper Library; last month we went live with our jobs board; and in May we start a new regular product/white paper e-newsletter.

As tech publications with high overhead continue to implode, those magazines that have taken a middle-of-the-road or frugal financial approach will be left standing. Those that serve the reader first with useful, hands-on, peer-to-peer focused content will thrive. That's why saying yes to the boss was a no-brainer.

For comments please email: kanderberg@comnews.com

Major projects ahead

Ken Anderberg

This just in: Despite expectations of a possible recession (if we're not already in one), Communications News subscribers are planning significant projects this year, topped by 19.5 percent who say their major projects in 2008 will be to upgrade their LANs, install new equipment and build new data centers. Those expectations are supported by the 61 percent of subscribers participating in our annual subscriber profile study who say they will be purchasing LAN hardware this year.

Second on the list of new projects are voice-over-IP implementations, with 13 percent of respondents saying this will be their major effort this year and 42 percent planning to purchase VoIP products and services in 2008. Other subscribers' main projects for the year: wireless networks (59 percent plan purchases), cabling/enclosures (47 percent), storage hardware/software (46 percent), network security (38 percent) and testing and monitoring (37 percent).

In addition, nearly one-fourth of the respondents say they will spend at least $10 million this year for communications, network and computer products and services this year, with 36 percent forecasting an increased budget from 2007 and 44 percent expecting the same budget as last year.

The question I like the most, however, as well as the top answer, was, "Which of the following helps inform you about what enterprise products are available?" The top response: articles in trade magazines (83 percent). Next came vendor Web sites (56 percent), word of mouth among peers (54.5 percent), white papers (52 percent) and trade shows/events (50 percent). Blogs came in next to last among 17 answers.

Seventy-one percent said they visited an advertiser's Web site as a result of reading Communications News. And 61 percent actually save their copies of the magazine, many for a year or more. Only four percent read the magazine only online.

The most popular areas on this Web site, according to the survey: articles in the most recent issue (37 percent), white papers (31 percent), new product information (26 percent) and the buyers' guides (21 percent).

For comments please email: kanderberg@comnews.com

How much do you surf?

Ken Anderberg

There's a perception within the technology marketing community that people who work in IT departments spend most of their workdays glued to computer screens surfing the Web. In reality, IT staff generally has little time for such activity, with their screen time mostly limited to traffic analysis, writing code or conducting routine maintenance.

In our last Web survey, we asked site visitors "How many hours during a typical work day do you spend 'surfing' the Web?" Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they spend less than two hours a day on such activity, while another 15 percent spend anywhere from two hours to four hours daily on the Web. Only 12 percent are on the Web from four to six hours a day, and 13 percent surf six hours or more daily at work.

Food for thought if you are marketing to IT decision makers.

For comments please email: kanderberg@comnews.com

Do webinars work for you?

Ken Anderberg

Are you using webinars for marketing? Maybe your experience is not unlike that of a vendor I chatted with at a recent trade show. While this marketing director fully understands the value of using an integrated marketing approach, management preferred to focus its attention on webinars, which pretty much ate up most of her marketing budget.

Her experience involved working with a print and online publication company that said it had 600,000 opt-in e-mail addresses to which it could market the webinars. A total of about 600 people signed up for the webinars, although I don't know how many actually listened in. Of those 600, the company made one sale, albeit a large one that justified the ROI of conducting the webinar.

The marketing manager was pleased with the results, but still not so pleased that the webinars used up most of her marketing dollars and she wasn't able to spread her marketing message in more venues and with more methods. Would a similar result (one large sale from 600 webinar attendees) be satisfactory for you?

For comments please email: kanderberg@comnews.com

The VoIP switch

Ken Anderberg

For the past two months or so, we've asked visitors to this Web site if their organization will be switching to voice over IP in 2008? We've put up a new survey (see at right), so it's time to report on the findings of the VoIP poll.

Of those responding, only 13 percent currently have VoIP partially or fully installed in their organizations. A startling 65 percent of those participating in the survey say they will implement VoIP in 2008. Of those, 29 percent will install the technology in parts of their organizations, while 36 percent plan a complete overhaul of their voice networks to VoIP.

Twenty-one percent of those polled say their organizations have no plans for VoIP in 2008 and have not installed such systems at all to date.

For comments please email: kanderberg@comnews.com

Are you LinkedIn?

Ken Anderberg

I'm a face-to-face kind of a guy. And I don't mean the type of pseudo face-to-face provided by FaceBook or MySpace. I mean the actual in-the-same-room kind of face-to-face. That's old school, I know, but I enjoy so much more the ability to watch the reactions of the other person during a conversation, observe their body language, have a real, real-time discussion (debate?) about the topic at hand.

But I recently was curious when someone I didn't know asked me by e-mail to join her LinkIn group. A friend had done this previously and I pretty much dismissed the invitation out of hand. This time, however, I was curious. So I clicked the link in the e-mail.

Turns out I had seven people who had invited me to join their LinkedIn groups. The only one I recognized was my friend. Just for kicks, I clicked on all of them to join their groups. Shortly, the phone rang and my most recent inviter was on the other end. Turns out she was a PR person who regularly sent me business e-mails. She thanked me profusely for joining her group. I explained why I had no real interest in joining a group of people I didn't know.

"But everyone here in Silicon Valley does it," she responded. She didn't really give me a reason why it is important to be linked in, but she sure was excited about the process. After reviewing the LinkedIn site, I decided it offered little to me - except the opportunity to waste time online.

Of course, that raised a question. How important - really - are such social networking sites to business people (outside of Silicon Valley, where being an early tech adopter seems to be mandatory)? Does the audience of Communications News - the IT directors, communications managers and C-level executives at the vast array of companies in our circulation - get involved much with these networks of strangers?

Personally, I don't have the time for them, nor do I see a need either personally or professionally to have my own MySpace page. Our readers, however, might feel differently.

For comments please email: kanderberg@comnews.com

The rebirth of ASPs

Ken Anderberg

At the Gartner ITxpo in Orlando, I asked one of the many vendor executives I met with what the difference was between today's software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers and application service providers (ASPs) who were so prominent during the IT gold rush seven years ago. It was, to me, a rhetorical question.

The executive promptly shook his head and concurred that there is really little difference between the two, but because ASPs failed miserably no one wants to use the same moniker to describe what is essentially the same service. It's kind of a marketing spin thing, you see. Give it a new name, say new and improved on the packaging, maybe add a few new ingredients or fancier packaging, and try again.

Of course, the main difference today is the proliferation of broadband connections in the enterprise community. An ASP service didn't work very well with dialup connections and the bubble burst before broadband use became widespread. Now, broadband is pervasive and SaaS has a better chance of success - or does it?

Maybe I'm being too cynical, but are there really any differences between ASPs and SaaS providers? And does anyone think they will go the way of ASPs?

P.S. I've got a fishing story to share with anyone interested. Just e-mail me. kanderberg@comnews.com

September 18, 2007

Do enterprise IT executives and vendor marketing executives see eye to eye? That was the subject of a recent "perceptions" survey Communications News conducted among our readers and technology vendors to evaluate whether both audiences were on the same page in terms of needs and marketing approaches. More than 900 subscribers responded, and their answers often varied sharply from the vendors they purchase from.

Both groups agreed on the top two concerns of IT departments in 2008 - network security and network performance, although there was (is) a significant difference between the two groups regarding how serious network security would be to subscribers, who we will call the customers, in 2008. Three-fourths of customers cited security as their top concern; 90 percent of the vendors participating say this is their customers' top concern.

Some other significant perception versus reality differences, include who primarily makes IT buying decisions - IT technical people or non-techies. Vendors say non-techies make such decisions 40 percent of the time, while customers say the techies make them 84 percent of the time.

Vendors (54 percent) say the most important justification for purchases is "building a case for improving operations," but 53 percent of customers say "budget restrictions" are their primary consideration. Nearly seven times as many vendors consider peer-to-peer recommendations as important as do customers; and twice as many customers are concerned with customer service as are the companies selling them the products.

Vendors (57 percent) say articles in trade magazines influence purchasing decisions; 76 percent of customers contend such articles influence their buying decisions. In addition, buyers' guides are 4 1/2 times as important in the customer group than is perceived by the vendor group; customers are 2 times more likely to be influenced by ads in trade magazines than vendors believe; catalogs are six times more useful to customers than vendors say; trade publication Web sites are rated twice as important as vendors think; and online product videos are more than twice as popular among customers than perceived.

One area both groups did agree on (not surprisingly, based on the data above) was whether enterprise IT vendors effectively communicate an understanding of customers' needs. Fifty-nine percent of subscribers said yes and 52 percent of vendors agree. Put another way, 48 percent of the vendors surveyed do not think they are doing a good job of communicating to potential customers. Interesting stuff.

If you would like a copy of the survey report, just send me an e-mail. kanderberg@comnews.com

September 1, 2007

IT departments everywhere are battling against the "consumerization" of the enterprise network - the adoption of consumer technologies in the corporate environment. They fear this trend will create major maintenance and support problems. But a report from the Yankee Group, "Zen and the Art of Rogue Employee Management," says enterprise IT departments need to find ways to embrace these consumer technologies - not fight them.

IT departments have been down this road before with PCs, laptops and cellphones, for example. Invariably, IT has taken a wait-and-see approach to these technologies, but Yankee Group suggests a gentler, more community-oriented approach - basically let employees police themselves.

The suggestion is for IT to adopt a "Zen-like" approach to managing such technologies. This would take the form of an internal customer care co-operative model. As Joshua Holbrook of Yankee Group explains, "Banning the use of consumer technologies in the workplace creates an endless game of whack-a-mole as IT support tries to catch and suppress each new device and application. IT groups that are willing to try to manage it all will soon be overwhelmed."

I doubt that providing an open door into the network for consumer technologies is a good idea, but maybe someone has a different view.

For comments please email: kanderberg@comnews.com

September 6, 2007

Greetings:

Balancing the need for control of the IT environment against the pressure brought unintentionally by our users to use software and devices not "approved" is indeed a challenge. My background begins with software development and one of the earliest lessons I learned was that no matter how neat or cool I thought the software was, if the intended audience had issues with it, then the software, however neat and cool, did not succeed. We are a service industry; and I have found that if we try to dictate what services our customers should want, we have taken step one towards creating an adversarial relationship. This is never productive. By not trying to lock down everything, by spending our energies trying to help educate the consumer about how their goals and our goals are really the same goals, we've been able to get a fairly high degree of cooperation where and when it's most needed. We've succeeded in creating an environment where when we do assert ourselves to exercise control in a particular area (most often security and bandwidth management, for a particular reason, our users have come to recognize that what we're doing is largely to help or protect them and their productivity, not to control them. Do they still do things we wish they wouldn't? Absolutely. Do they from time to time make us mumble and grumble to ourselves and each other within the IT team? Absolutely. Do they view the IT team as their partners; as a ready resource to call upon when they have a need? Absolutely.

Doug Sands
Chief Information Officer
Royal Pet Supplies