I’m very excited to be returning to the industry analyst business full time with 451 Research, the company I co-founded 15 years ago. I’ve spent just over three years away, running product marketing in the eDiscovery software business and more recently, running my own consulting business.
I’ve rejoined as research VP for software. That somewhat bland job title belies the nature of the work I’ll be doing with the other analysts here, given that we’re in the middle of all sorts of fascinating industry trends, as the digital transformation of business, government and our daily lives takes place around us.
My main task is to shape and guide the software research, spanning devops and middleware through data platforms and analytics to social business applications. I’ll still following markets I know well, such as information governance and eDiscovery. But I’ll be looking beyond those to broader trends, helping our customers navigate the fast-moving effects of software – if not quite eating the world, then at least taking large bites out of it – wherever and on whatever it’s deployed.
Not only is it a great time be rejoining an analyst firm, it’s a particularly good time to be at 451 Research. You might expect me to say such a thing – and you’d be right! But time spent recently in analyst relations taught me that there are quite a few misconceptions around about 451; ones that we aim to correct in the months & years to come. Specifically, there are some lesser-known facts that helped sway my decision and is increasingly swaying way more important people’s decisions – those that choose to become customers:
For instance, did you know that 451 Research:
- publishes more than 4,500 reports a year and more than 52 million data points each quarter?
- is engaged with more than 13,000 IT professionals representing more than $100bn in IT purchasing power?
- has influenced more than $160bn of investment in the IT sector over the past five years via our investment banking, venture capital, private equity strategic acquirer and equity investor customers?
- is mentioned in the press more than 450 times every month?[
It’s a great team, most of whom I worked with the first time round; that’s because analysts don’t leave 451 that often as it’s a great place to work. I’ll also be helping build up the rapidly-growing consulting business that 451 started a few years ago, as well as working with the data and enterprise strategy teams that have grown so much since I was last here.
Put all that together and that’s why I think now is a great time to be a software industry analyst and in particular, be part of the best team in the business, once again.
