Updating our vendor client disclosures
From time to time, I disclose our vendor client lists. Another iteration is below. To be clear:
- This is a list of Monash Advantage members.
- All our vendor clients are Monash Advantage members, unless …
- … we work with them primarily in their capacity as technology users. (A large fraction of our user clients happen to be SaaS vendors.)
- We do not usually disclose our user clients.
- We do not usually disclose our venture capital clients, nor those who invest in publicly-traded securities.
- Included in the list below are two expired Monash Advantage members who haven’t said they will renew, as mentioned in my recent post on analyst bias. (You can probably imagine a couple of reasons for that obfuscation.)
With that said, our vendor client disclosures at this time are:
- Aster Data
- Cloudera
- CodeFutures/dbShards
- Couchbase
- EMC/Greenplum
- Endeca
- IBM/Netezza
- Infobright
- Intel
- MarkLogic
- ParAccel
- QlikTech
- salesforce.com/database.com
- SAND Technology
- SAP/Sybase
- Schooner Information Technology
- Skytide
- Splunk
- Teradata
- Vertica
Notes, links, and comments January 20, 2011
I haven’t done a pure notes/links/comments post for a while. Let’s fix that now. (A bunch of saved-up links, however, did find their way into my recent privacy threats overview.)
First and foremost, the fourth annual New England Database Summit (nee “Day”) is next week, specifically Friday, January 28. As per my posts in previous years, I think well of the event, which has a friendly, gathering-of-the-clan flavor. Registration is free, but the organizers would prefer that you register online by the end of this week, if you would be so kind.
The two things potentially wrong with the New England Database Summit are parking and the rush hour drive home afterwards. I would listen with interest to any suggestions about dinner plans.
One thing I hope to figure out at the Summit or before is what the hell is going on on Vertica’s blog or, for that matter, at Vertica. The recent Mike Stonebraker post that spawned a lot of discussion and commentary has disappeared. Meanwhile, Vertica has had three consecutive heads of marketing leave the company since June, and I don’t know who to talk to there any more. Read more
| Categories: About this blog, Analytic technologies, Data warehousing, GIS and geospatial, Investment research and trading, MongoDB and 10gen, OLTP, Open source, PostgreSQL, Vertica Systems | 4 Comments |
I’m partway back
As previously noted, I cut back temporarily on blogging (and taking briefings) a couple of months ago as my parents got sicker, then suspended work altogether a month ago when they died. I am immensely grateful to be in a line of work where choices like that are possible. Once again, I thank you all for your tolerance and kindness.
Last Monday night, Linda and I returned from Columbus, leaving behind an apartment that was hardly packed up at all. We have to go back the week of 12/6; then I’m going to see clients in California the week of 12/13, as I do about once per quarter; then of course come the holidays; there also is estate-related stuff to take care of even while we’re here; and by the way, year-end is when over half of all Monash Advantage members renew. So I surely will be on a limited blogging schedule for most of December as well.
I did, however, get a few posts done this weekend, finishing up one on MarkLogic that had been in the hopper for a while, and adding two rather substantive spin-off posts from that one as well. After the New Year, I would hope to be back up to full speed.
| Categories: About this blog | 1 Comment |
Where I’m at now
My parents’ health issues didn’t work out as I hoped, and my parents wound up dying 53 hours apart. I’m dealing with the aftermath, and expect that to continue pretty much until Thanksgiving. Thus, for a while I’ve stopped taking briefings, writing my usual kind of blog posts, and all that stuff. I’ve been responding to quick client inquiries, but that’s about it.
Naturally, when I get back to work, there will be a massive backlog. Highlights include:
- My quarterly trip to California, in this case to see clients both old and new.
- Catch-up blogging.
- A white paper/webinar project.
- Monash Advantage renewals.
To make things simple, 2011 Monash Advantage terms and conditions will be completely unchanged from 2010. That’s never been the case before; if nothing else, I’ve raised prices every year. But even if I’d had more time on my hands, I might have made only minor tweaks this time around, as the current version seems to be working well for vendor (that would be me) and clients alike. If I find the time, I’ll edit the contracts for typos and so on.* But what you get and what you pay will be exactly as they have been this year, except to the extent I can persuade you to make better use of what’s always been on offer to you.
*First two on the hit list: “Action, MA” should be “Acton, MA”, and some people dislike the actually sensible reference to the year 2019.
Obviously, various schedules I was trying to work to are no longer operative. But I really, really want to move forward promptly on the Privacy 3.0 project I mentioned to some of you. All the other stuff — post-print journalism and so on — can happen when it happens.
| Categories: About this blog | 12 Comments |
With luck the Monash Research RSS feed is now fixed
Our integrated RSS feed went out. Melissa Bradshaw has now replaced Feedjumbler with Yahoo Pipes, so the feed should be working again.
Is it?
| Categories: About this blog | 4 Comments |
I understand the Monash Research RSS feed isn’t working
I gather from a few folks (who use at least two different RSS readers) that the last post to come through our integrated RSS feed was a Monash Report post from September 29. Is this everybody’s experience? And how are our blog-specific feeds going?
Thanks!
| Categories: About this blog | 4 Comments |
Further thoughts on previous posts
One thing I love about DBMS 2 is the really smart comments a number of readers — that would be you guys — make. However, not all the smart comments are made in the first 5 minutes a post is up, so some readers (unless you circle back) might miss great points other readers make. Well, here are some pointers to some of what you might have missed, along with other follow-up comments to old posts while I’m at it. Read more
| Categories: About this blog, Calpont, IBM and DB2, Netezza, Oracle, SAS Institute | Leave a Comment |
Where I’m at
It would be an exaggeration to say that my family health issues are “under control.” My father still isn’t fully alert. He also has tubes surgically implanted in his throat and belly, and will not be able to speak during a months-long rehab. (He will HATE that; he’s the kind of guy who always charms or at least entertains his caretakers.) In one of my better pieces of writing, I explained all that in a long note to my partly-senile mother, who seems to be handling it; but of course she remains a concern. Linda’s leg is still broken.
One moral in all this is that it is a VERY good idea for the elderly to live in the same metropolitan area as their children. When I’m with my father, I can rein in his overconfidence about muddling through episodes of weakness. When I’m not, bad things happen.
Still, things are moving forward. A long, slow rehab will be very unpleasant for my parents, but at least there’s good hope we won’t have too many more near-term urgent crises. Communication and coordination among my parents’ support structure is better, even in the case of Friendship Village. And Linda seems sufficiently able to fend for herself that I’ll keep my plans to go to the SF Bay area the week of October 4, albeit being very careful to stock the house with food beforehand.
I’ve kept up client service through all this, cutting relatively few corners, and that won’t change. Read more
| Categories: About this blog | 12 Comments |
Some of my travails
Two weeks ago tonight, my 86 year old father was taken unresponsive from his home at Friendship Village of Dublin (Ohio) to Riverside Methodist Hospital. He remains unresponsive, and his doctors and the Riverside Hospital nurses are trying to puzzle out how to bring him around. Riverside Hospital does not know what happened at Friendship Village of Dublin the night he wound up collapsing, so naturally I asked Friendship Village for the information, that I may relay it to Riverside Hospital, so that they may help him recover from his “critically stable” condition. Two weeks after the event, they are still refusing it to me.
| Categories: About this blog | 6 Comments |
How I’m planning to package user services
On the Monash Research business website right now, you could find multiple pages explaining and extolling our vendor consulting services. We even have posted standard contracts that:
- Are concise.
- Are priced in terms units of work, yet do not require me to meter services at precise hourly or daily rates.
- Have a minimum scope that allows me to feel comfortable I’m spending enough time with a client to do good work.
- Extend over time, mimicking the subscription model of analyst services.*
- Do not contain any concept of “work for hire,” transfer of intellectual property, or “we own your brain.”
- Don’t have any other features that are stunningly inappropriate for our business.
By way of contrast, the user services portion of our site is only a few lines long, and that’s beginning to hurt. Read more