Categories
Humour

Merry Xmas from Object Towers

I won’t be giving up the day job to become a Santa impersonator…..

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to my small but loyal readership.

Here’s to more blogging in 2007.

Andrew_1

Categories
Uncategorized

Overlooked by the FT? Tough.

So says Digital Business Editor Peter Whitehead in a cheery email to podcast subscribers:

"To all those who feel their submissions have been overlooked (and in fact they have been). I
can only promise more such frustrations in 2007 – it’s just the way it works."

Categories
Technology PR

How much is Mike Magee worth…

…now that VNU Europe has been sold to 3i for £215m (Guardian story here – reg required). Having sold The Inquirer to VNU back in January, there is speculation in some quarters that this new acquistion will translate into vested options for Mike – a "life-changing" sum.

Look forward to Mike buying us all a drink 😉

Categories
Current Affairs

100 things we didn’t know this time last year

I’m a sucker for this kind of thing – the full list here.

Among my favourites:

The = sign was invented by 16th Century Welsh
mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing "is equal to"
in his equations. He chose the two lines because "noe 2 thynges can be
moare equalle".

In America it’s possible to subpoena a dog.

The British buy the most compact discs in the world – an average of 3.2 per year, compared to 2.8 in the US and 2.1 in France.

   

       
       


The average employee spends 14 working days a
year on personal e-mails, phone calls and web browsing, outside
official breaks, according to employment analysts Captor.

Jimi Hendrix pretended to be gay to be discharged from the US Army.

Musical instrument shops must pay an annual
royalty to cover shoppers who perform a recognisable riff before they
buy, thereby making a "public performance".

Categories
Humour

Web 2.0 poster child poster

Hat tip to Valleywag on this one – neat:

From eBoy, the Berlin
creators of some of Wired Magazine’s graphics: a simcity in which all
the billboards and signs display the brands of web companies. Google,
Yahoo, Youtube, Technorati, Blogger, Odeo. It’s a wonderful graphic,
but web entrepreneurs already live in a world of their own daydreams;
immersed in a 3D simulation, they might never unplug. The full
illustration:

Eby Foobar 35T
Categories
Technology PR

HYPERION POSITIONED IN LEADERS QUADRANT OF ANALYST FIRM REPORT ON CORPORATE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SUITES

Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute Cited as Criteria for Evaluation

SANTA CLARA, Calif., December 6, 2006 – Hyperion (Nasdaq Global Select:
HYSL), the global leader in Business Performance Management (BPM)
software, today announced that Gartner, Inc. has placed Hyperion in the
leaders quadrant in its "Magic Quadrant for CPM Suites, 2006"1

The recently released report lists Hyperion among a field of 16
vendors. Gartner weighed Hyperion’s completeness of vision and its
ability to execute in determining its position in the Magic Quadrant,
which uses multiple criteria to characterize companies in the leaders,
challengers, visionaries and niche players quadrants.

"Hyperion’s strong brand awareness with CFOs and other senior
executives means it is present in virtually every CPM suite
evaluation," said Godfrey Sullivan, chairman and CEO of Hyperion. "Now
more than ever, Hyperion is devoted to being the management system for
today’s enterprise. As we build on the success of Hyperion System 9
with new applications and capabilities, we will work hard to earn that
market position again and again."

About the Magic Quadrant

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2006 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused
with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a
marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s
analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that
marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any
vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not
advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the
"Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research
tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner
disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this
research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a
particular purpose.

About Hyperion

Hyperion Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq Global Select: HYSL) is the
global leader in Business Performance Management software. More than
12,000 customers in 90 countries rely on Hyperion both for insight into
current business performance and to drive performance improvement. With
Hyperion software, businesses collect, analyze and share data across
the organization, linking strategies to plans and monitoring execution
against goals. Hyperion integrates financial management applications
with a business intelligence platform into a single management system
for the global enterprise . For more information, contact us .

"Hyperion" and Hyperion’s product names are trademarks of Hyperion.
References to other companies and their products use trademarks owned
by the respective companies and are for reference purpose only.

Safe Harbor Statement

Statements in this press release other than statements of historical
fact are forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to,
statements concerning the potential success of anticipated product
features, the anticipated product offerings and the potential market
opportunities for business performance management software. Such
statements constitute anticipated outcomes and do not assure results.
Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated by the
forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including, but
not limited to the company’s ability to retain and attract key
employees, the successful and timely development of new products, the
impact of competitive products and pricing, customer demand, and
technological shifts. For a more detailed discussion of factors that
could affect the company’s performance and cause actual results to
differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking
statements, interested parties should review the company’s filings with
the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Report on Form
10-K filed on September 1, 2006 and the Report on Form 10-Q filed on
November 8, 2006. The company does not undertake an obligation to
update its forward-looking statements to reflect future events or
circumstances.

[1] Gartner Research "Magic Quadrant for CPM Suites, 2006" , Nigel Rayner, 1 December 1, 2006

Categories
Technology PR

Who is The World’s Leading blogger?

The World’s Leading blogger threw a party last night – so plenty of sore heads in tech PR land this morning.

Much ale consumed and good to meet other fellow TWL watchers – Justin Hayward from MS&L and  ex-Textie Mark Pinsent to name a few. PR Week’s Sarah Robertson was there too.

Thanks to Steve Mallison-Jones for bankrolling much of the proceedings. And to Jenny Ellis from Spark for bagging some space in the crowded downstairs bar (who says philosophy grads can’t get jobs?)

However – the identity of TWL remains a mystery.

Categories
Technology PR

Hyperion extends support for Vista: IT Week

James Murray’s story  here on Hyperion’s new business intelligence gadgets for Vista.

Also worth looking at the new video whiteboards on BI running on the IT Week site (also being hosted by James Murray). View them here.

Categories
Technology PR

Nick Booth’s new approach to journalistic research

Freelance journalist Nick Booth has a new blog – or a research portal as he describes it. He is asking PRs to post responses to questions for various features he is writing – the idea being that you can see what everyone else is saying. "And avoid repeating anyone else’s cliches."

It’s an interesting concept – not sure how PRs will take to seeing their responses in full public view – but perhaps it might act as a quality control mechanism – and then you could see which quotes actually make it into the final article. Or you might resubmit answers in the light of other responses.

Worth seeing how this works out.

Categories
Technology PR

Enterprise software salesman confesses

Here.

Amusing.