• The generalities I posted a few years ago still apply (and, I think, are a good read in any case about the realities of analyst coverage).
• The updates a year and a half ago are still very accurate, although I might name different specific clients today.
• The partial client list from half a year ago is still pretty accurate, although Microsoft and Kognitio have dropped off, Clearpace changed its name to RainStor, and non-RDBMS analytic data management/analysis contenders Cloudera and Splunk have been added.
• While I have user clients, I have nothing to disclose about them.

One new development is that for the first time since 2001, I’ve taken stock in a private company. It’s Petascan, a seed/stealth-stage outfit with some very innovative ideas about how to use Flash memory in support of analytic data processing.  I’d like to do more of this, with conflicts evaluated on a case-by-case basis.  For example, I bet I could bring a lot of value to vertically-oriented analytics start-ups, who would at worst compete with only a small fraction each of the business of the more horizontally-oriented companies I generally write about.

• DBMS2 covers database management, analytics, and related technologies.
• Text Technologies covers text mining, search, and social software.
• Strategic Messaging analyzes marketing and messaging strategy.
• The Monash Report examines technology and public policy issues.
• Software Memories recounts the history of the software industry.

But I actually write a sixth blog too, which has taken over much of the role previously filled by The Monash Report. It also overlaps coverage of internet technologies with Text Technologies.

That is A World of Bytes, which I write for Network World. I use A World of Bytes as my primary outlet for mass-appeal kinds of subjects, such as public policy, e-mail, spam, and the technology of TV football broadcasts. Perhaps the most famous of those posts is this one on online reputation management, because of its last two sentences. I also use A World of Bytes for IT-centric posts on subjects that don’t fit neatly into my more focused blogs, from Oracle application glitches to general software buying practices.

Until a few weeks ago, A World of Bytes had serious UI flaws, which kept me from seriously considering integrating it into my general multi-blog feed. (If you’re reading this, you’re probably subscribed to that, and if not you definitely should be.) But those are now largely fixed.* And so it’s now time to ask:

Would you like to see A World of Bytes integrated into the general “Monash Information Services” RSS feed?

*Obviously, it’s still ad-supported. And the post categorization features are so lame as to be useless. And one paragraph style is still broken as of this writing. But that’s all minor compared to how bad it was before.

I will be guided strongly by your feedback.

• Help visitors find information that may be of interest to them
• Keep the blogs easy to read and pleasant to look at

I hope you will agree that we’ve met those goals with — as it were — flying colors.

Most aspects of the redesign are pretty obvious, but here’s a biggie you might at first overlook. On most category pages on DBMS2, Text Technologies, and Software Memories, there are now brief category descriptions and, crucially, suggested links. Hopefully, these will help you find research that is interesting to you, but which you may have missed the first time around. If you want to check out some examples, you could start with:

• (in DBMS2) Business intelligence
• (in DBMS2) SAP
• (in Text Technologies) Google

Also — if you’re wondering why we added that super-prominent sign-up box for our complete feed, the reason is simple: Only about a third of our feed subscribers take the integrated feed. (The others typically take just Text Technologies or just DBMS2.) Given how my interests and subjects connect to each other, I think my readers are much better off if they get at least the headlines to everything.

• The title of “my biggest customer” has no clear winner these days. Most of the contenders are small DBMS vendors such as Netezza, DATAllegro, and EnterpriseDB. Generally, I’m closer to small companies these days than to big ones.
• That wasn’t always the case. For example, In other years my biggest customers have been Oracle (several times), SAP, Computer Associates, Microsoft (I think — if not so, then close to it), and AOL.
• I’ve had a falling-out with SAP, who flat-out cheated me in some business dealings. Multiple execs from the VP level on up seem to have been OK with that. If you think that SAP is more ethical than, say, Oracle or Microsoft, I strongly beg to differ.
• Every white paper and webcast I do is “sponsored”; i.e., money changes hands. (There may be occasional exceptions to that rule in the future, but it’s usually the case.) Sponsorship is clearly disclosed.
• I cannot commit to promptly or completely disclosing who my consulting clients are. Sometimes they want to be served in confidence. However, I always have disclosed — and in the future always will disclose — any kind of relationship in which I am paid to promote companies in any way.
• I do spot consulting for both public-equity and private-equity/venture capital investors. In other years I’ve also had a small number of retainer relationships with public-equity investors, but there don’t happen to be any at the moment.

dbms2.com email — which is what most of you use — is down at the moment. monash.com email, which is hosted by Google, seems just fine.

I’ll get this all sorted out soon. And then I’ll catch up on some monashadvantage.com access I owe.

The reason you should care about these is in both cases the same: Our research is actually spread across multiple sites and feeds. I write about Google both in the Monash Report and on Text Technologies. I write about enterprise text management both on Text Technologies and on DBMS2. I write about computing appliances both on DBMS2 and in the Monash Report. I write about data mining in all three places. And now that there’s an integrated, industry history relevant to any of the other subject areas may find its way onto Software Memories. Your view of my views simply isn’t complete unless you have access to all of those sites.

As of this writing, my blogs (DBMS2, the Monash Report, Text Technologies, and Software Memories) are all working in Firefox, and the top page of each is working in IE, but the rest of the pages/links are NOT working in IE. (But www.monash.com, a non-Wordpress site on the same host, is still working through IE.) Naturallly, I’m addressing this problem as fast as I can. I imagine the fix will involve some sort of a reinstall and/or theme change, which could alter the blogs’ look-and-feel, maybe not for the better (especially at first). I apologize for the inconvenience!

If you’re reading here, you’re probably familiar with my software industry credentials — top-ranked stock analyst, top-tier product analyst, sometime entrepreneur, etc. If not, there’s always my official bio. But I also have some non-trivial public policy and economics chops. I spent two years at the Kennedy School of Government after getting my Ph.D. Then, turning down an assistant professorship at the Kellogg School of Management as well as research jobs at RAND and IDA, I went to Wall Street — which is, if one chooses to make it such, one heck of a further education in economics. And then in the mid/late 90s, Linda and I actually got active in the internet services market, analyzing, consulting, etc. Indeed, we even (re)wrote a few speeches for Steve Case of AOL, including some Congressional testimony.

Bottom line: Yes, I actually have some idea what I’m talking about.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/columnist.do?command=viewColumnist&bylineID=894

The good news is that you can now find about a year and a half of columns there, all of them with legible titles and descriptions.