Ericsson continues to climb the Lighthouse Telecoms Index

Telia has been the biggest gainer this month with a 9 position gain. The firm is aiming to expand in new regions and has also acquired 100% stake in MCT for this purpose. Ericsson which had moved up 5 positions last month has moved up another 2 spots to get to the coveted second position. The firm has got some of the most lucrative contracts such as IMS contract with Telenor and network expansion deal with Bharti Airtel that have contributed to continued profitable growth.

Global Crossing and SBC have shown the highest month on month decline in the Lighthouse Telecoms Index by dropping down 7 positions each. Global Crossing has had a dull month as there no major reports have been released by analyst firms since May when it received the Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Award for Global Excellence in North American Enterprise and Carrier Internet Protocol (IP) Solutions. Avaya which dropped 4 positions last month has again dropped 4 positions this month. The fact that its research in software engineering has been rated as one of the best by ACM not helping it to gain ground in the Lighthouse Telecoms Index.

Interestingly this month there have been no new entrants (or drop outs) from the top 25 Telecom firms in our index. If you wish to be sent the top 25 firms in Telecoms Index each month, email us at analysts at lighthousear dot com. You can also read how we do our Analyst Index rankings.

Lighthouse makes a strategic move

Over the next two weeks Lighthouse will be leasing a substantially larger office at the Technopark, the central London science park. Part of our team, including me, will be on vacation while the move is unfolding. The new office be in full operation from August 5th. Our email and telephone details are unchanged, as is our PO Box number.

The super-hot commercial property market bounded by the London inner ring road means that businesses hop from one part to another as they grow, and as different districts rise and fall in fashion. Reflecting that, Lighthouse will have moved four times over nine years and, at times, straddled locations.

We have always leased places within a mile of Hungerford Bridge, the principal pedestrian and rail crossing across the Thames. Quite a few organisations have taken the same route from St. James's to the South Bank: the NGO that neighbored Lighthouse there has also been our neighbor at Southbank House. Quite by surprise I saw two former colleagues of mine in this building today, also looking to lease an office here. The location of our new office is no exception to the 'Hungerford mile' rule: the Technopark is just the other side of the Imperial War Museum from our office at Southbank House.

However, it's a strategic extension for Lighthouse. Our space in the science park is supported by the Higher Education Innovation Fund, and will allow us to transfer knowledge and skills between our business and London's universities and research institutes. It will enable Lighthouse to develop stronger, leading-edge technology for our evaluation and development services, especially our AR Intranet, web seminars and our analysis of new research. We'll have substantially larger premises, with enough space to double our staff.

Our clients will benefit from excellent transport links, a strong IT infrastructure and well-equipped board rooms for seminars and client meetings there. Our staff at the Technopark will enjoy good facilities too: we've always dreamed of French doors onto a balcony. We'll also start to offer internships to students there, talking advantage of our closeness to three notable colleges: South Bank University, the UK university that ranks seventh for starting salaries; the London College of Communication, a preeminent university for marketing and journalism; and King's College London, whose business school is a few minutes away by the Waterloo International railway terminus.

P.S. We'll be hiring students as assistants, rather than as interns. Our initial discussions indicate that some candidates thought we were offering unpaid summer work experience; our vacancies are paid, on-going, part-time gigs.

Primavera Systems jumps up in the Lighthouse Software Index

Primavera Systems is the biggest gainer in this month's Lighthouse Software Index with a sharp +27 change in its month-on-month ranking. The company, well known for its IT Project and Portfolio Management products has been rated as a leader by Gartner.

Infor, Sungard, Sage, webMethods and Tibco have all entered this month's top 25. Among these the biggest gainer is Infor (+12) which has just closed its acquisition of Workbrain and Hansen. Sungard, which has been named as a leading provider of financial software and services by Celent, has also gained 10 positions. Borland which has teamed up with VMware to provide better applications for software testing has also gained 14 positions.

The biggest loser this month is Aspect Software which has lost 23 positions to end up at 53. The firm looks headed further down as the major increase in its position in May was due to a series of research published by Gartner.

Avid Technology and Corel have also dropped down 20 positions each to end up at 101st and 88th spot respectively. The most high profile loser is however, mySQL which has lost 14 positions and has dropped out of the top 25. The firm had just managed to enter the top 25 last month based on analyst interest over its collaboration with IBM. Autonomy (-9), IFS (-10), Progress Software (-6) and Cognos (-4) have also dropped out of the top 25. McAfee which had jumped up 9 positions in May has also slid down 9 spots and is now ranked at 25th spot.

If you wish to be sent the top 25 firms in Software Index each month, email us at analysts at lighthousear dot com. You can also read how we do our Analyst Index rankings.

Lighthouse's regular Spotlight on important new research

Lighthouse produces four monthly Spotlight newsletters to inform analysts about new research in our key market segments: services, telecoms, software and systems. We launched the Spotlight emails in October last year as an independent review of the research that stuck in our minds, for good reasons or bad.

The Spotlight emails now have several hundred subscribers. They are predominantly industry analysts who appreciate our independent perspective. However, you don't have to be an analyst to get the Spotlight: the services is now available to all.

Each newsletter includes links to work from several different analyst houses. As a result, subscribers are often most interested by research by less prominent analyst firms. Over the last month, for example, the most clicked-on articles in the four Spotlight services were Aberdeen on outsourcing, Insight on carrier services, Longhaus on .NET in Asia and IDC on storage optimization.

To subscribe to the Spotlight, visit our subscription form or email us to say which Spotlights you'd like to get: services, telecom, software or systems.You can use the same form to request our 'Analyst Equity' digest of the posts on our popular blog.

Lighthouse seminar alumni to gain IIAR membership

AR professionals who complete Lighthouse's training seminars now automatically become members of the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations, at no extra cost to themselves. Over the next year a portion of Lighthouse's training revenue will go to the IIAR; in exchange, the IIAR will grant membership to future graduates of our courses.

This represents a substantial saving for participants of seminars that lead to Lighthouse AR professional development certificate, including our 'Win Them Over' webinar series and in-house courses.

Lighthouse hopes that other training providers will make similar arrangements with the IIAR. It's highly effective as a commercial agreement, since it increases the value of AR training. While the IIAR does not endorse training providers, we feel that Lighthouse and other training providers should endorse the IIAR and work actively to expand its membership.

Webinar: Find out what's happening with Forrester Research

Forrester Research has made impressive progress over the last year. Its role-based reorganisation has been planned and executed carefully over the last two years. That puts Forrester in pole position to benefit from any discontent among Gartner's clients, partly because Forrester is also the top analyst firm when it comes to client satisfaction.

Because of a major role-based reorganization, Forrester is delivering increasing value to clients. Profits have doubled there since 2005. Its stock has risen 7 percent over the last month alone, in anticipation of this month's half-yearly results. To find out what that increasing influence means for your business, join this month's 'Advisor Spotlight' webinar.

However, Forrester's role-based reorganisation has led to much greater changes in the way the firm research and advisory services work. Many vendors are struggling to win their share of Forrester's expanding impact on buyers. Some companies have not worked out how to adapt to the firm's new organization. Many AR professionals are failing to respond to these changes. Last year the firm answered over 16,800 inquiries from executives, and the firms that Forrester follows have to seriously adapt to its new approach to research.

On Thursday July 19, Lighthouse's Duncan Chapple will lead a interactive webinar to outline what the changes are at Forrester and what your firm needs to do to benefit from the firm's surge in influence.

In each of Lighthouse's monthly "Advisor Spotlight" webinars, an open discussion gives Lighthouse's insight into developments of on top advisory firm. Until now, these calls have only been open to Lighthouse's key subscribers. On the third Thursday of each month, we'll share our most recent analysis of each firm's research interests, customer base and international reach with a wider audience.

To book your place, click here.

Troubled LSI Logic dips sharply in the Lighthouse Systems Index

This week we present an analysis of how firms in our Systems Index have progressed this year. For the purpose we have compared how the firms have ranked in July 2007 against January 2007. The graph to the right shows some of the firms that have gained or lost the most.

Océ appears to be the leading gainer as it has gained a solid 9 positions in the period although - as in any race - it's easier to overtake competitors at the back of the field. The firm was mentioned in our April index as being the leading gainer. The firm has continued to move forward and has been awarded numerous awards by BERTL and European Digital Press.

Overall, we are more impressed by Xerox and NetApp, which has gained 3 positions this month and overall 4 positions since January 2007. The firm has been once again stated as a leader in the the Storage Services Industry and its StoreVault S500 has been voted as the best storage system by ServerWatch.com. Qualcomm, despite being the biggest loser last month, is comfortably in the positive zone with analysts: its AR program is doing very well. The firm's gain of 5 positions this month certainly helping to ease last month's loss.

LSI Logic is one of the biggest loser as it has slid down 9 positions. The firm has been bogged down by both restructuring costs after completed its acquisition of Agere Systems and its associated announcement to cut 900 jobs in face of weakening sales. That will surely make it difficult for analysts to move it away from their red zone. Symbol has also slid down 9 positions after its acquisition by Motorola while Barco, which has been commended by Frost & Sullivan as the best provider for commercial of the shelf visual displays for defence purposes, has also slid 5 positions.

If you wish to be sent the top 25 firms in Systems Index each month, email us at analysts at lighthousear dot com. You can also read how we do our Analyst Index rankings.

World-class analyst relations training is now available at your desk

You can qualify as an analyst relations professional this summer - without leaving your desk. Over the next ten weeks, one of the most respected analyst relations leaders will share more than 20 years' insight into analyst relations.

This summer Dr Efrem Mallach will teach "Win Them Over" - his course on the best-selling AR book of the same name - as a series of five web seminars for the first time. "Win Them Over" was the first guide to analyst and consultant relations. The twentieth anniversary edition published this year summarizes Mallach's experience as an analyst, an AR pioneer and as principal of two of the world's most respected analyst relations consultancies: Kensington Group and Lighthouse Analyst Relations.

Each webinar is a self-contained course, covering the five core areas of analyst relations knowledge. The webinar is illustrated by a full set of slides, and includes a question-and-answer session with Dr. Mallach:

• 1] The impact of analysts. This session explains who analysts and consultants are. It will show exactly how advisors influence sales. You'll see how industry analysts and consultants impact your sales.
• 2] What analysts and consultants want. This session shows the relationship between the goals and means of an analyst/consultant relations program and the information content that analysts require. You'll learn what their "hot buttons" are as well as their emotional "red flags" - so you don't accidentally hit one when you do something that is perfect for a different public.
• 3] Information channels for reaching analysts. This sessions discusses attitude factors with analysts, the inbound value of analysts to your firm and the growing importance of the "consultant difference."
• 4] Planning and alignment. Internally focused analyst relations activities are the foundation for putting your analyst/consultant relations program in place. This session shows how analyst/consultant relations in your organization relies on showing how valuable your analyst/consultant relations program is -- and shows you how to prove it.
• 5] Executing AR outreach. We'll go through everything involved in working with analysts and consultants: planning a program, publicizing it, running it, auditing its effectiveness. This session helps you to assess your program resource requirements and gives you the tools you need to firm up your program timetable. This session also involves a review of real analyst/consultant relations programs.

Two special offers are available for attending three or more of the series.

• $500 saving. After booking three or more webinars, attendees receive a complementary copy of Dr Mallach's 332-page textbook on analyst relations, "Win Them Over", with a value of $500. This book contains the material used in all five webinars, and valuable examples of real analyst relations plans.
  
• AR certificate. After attending all five webinars, attendees receive our Analyst relations Professional Development Certificates noting the duration and contents of the seminars attended. Many professional associations count Lighthouse course hours towards continuous professional development requirements.

To book your seat, visit www.acteva.com/go/ar/.

Dimension Data dashes up the Lighthouse Services Index

The star performer this month has been Dimension Data which has jumped up 7 positions and is now ranked as one of the top 25 firms in the Lighthouse Services Index. The firm has not only won the Helios HR Apollo Award for commitment to employee growth but is also being considered as one of the top finalist for 2007 Microsoft Partner of the Year award in 4 categories.

Fujitsu Services, which has just been awarded a framework contract by the UK government worth about £32 million, has also shown a 5 position improvement. Another entrant in the top 25 this month is HP Services which has at last won widespread analyst interest with the announcement to buy SPI Dynamics and strengthen its existing set of products to include security testing.

Siemens Business Services (SBS), Orange Business Services, Xansa and Patni are the biggest losers in this month's with drop of 5 positions each. Patni has apparently failed to create much analyst interest with its announcement to strengthen its European operations while SBS and Orange Business Services have not made any major announcement this month and both have dropped out of the top 25. Xansa too has made no major announcement except 2 board changes in the same month.

If you wish to be sent the top 25 firms in Services Index each month, email us at analysts at lighthousear dot com. You can also read how we do our Analyst Index rankings.