Industry analyst Jeff Kaplan of THINKstrategies is seeking support for his 3rd annual 163-mile Pan-Mass Challenge bicycle ride. The annual fund-raising event supports the Dana Farber Institute's research and treatment activities aimed at helping children with cancer.

This year's bicycle ride is August 1-2. It is expected to attract approximately 5000 riders and over 2000 volunteers, and hopes to raise over $30 million in contributions, despite today's tough economy.

Jeff will ride again this year with Team Kermit.  The team raises funds specifically for the Jared Branfman Sunflowers for Life Fund for Pediatric Brain and Spinal Cancer Research. 

Making a contribution of any size is easy and tax deductible. Find more about Pan-Mass here, and see Jeff's profile and contribute to his $6,000 fund-raising goal at www.pmc.org.

Editor's note: Jeff didn’t ask me to post about his ride, in fact he doesn’t know I’m writing this. Drop me a line if you’re in the high tech influencer / influencer relations space and are out there doing good deeds — or know of someone who is. Happy to help get word out around my corner of the community.

Springboard Research, a leading innovator in the IT market research industry, has announced the appointment of Masami Kashiwagi as Research Manager for Japan.

Ms. Kashiwagi will be in charge of overseeing all of Springboard’s research programs in the Japanese market as well as being responsible for managing and growing Springboard's research operations in Japan. Ms. Kashiwagi will be based in Tokyo and will report to Dane Anderson, CEO and EVP of Research at Springboard Research.

"We see Japan as a crucial market for Springboard’s continuous growth and Masami’s domain expertise and local experience will prove to be a vital asset in our efforts to make deeper inroads into the Japanese market," said Mr. Anderson. "Our expansion in Japan strengthens our global footprint and solidifies our reputation as the leading global IT market research firm based out of the Asia Pacific region" Mr. Anderson added.

Ms. Kashiwagi has over 10 years experience in the IT research and consulting industry. She has earlier worked with IDC Japan as a Senior Market Analyst for IT Services for over six years.  In her later stint as Market Intelligence Manager at American Power Conversion, (APC), she was responsible for research analysis and reporting on the macro economy and industry trends, competitive landscape and brand awareness. Ms. Kashiwagi also was a Management Consultant with Price Waterhouse Consultants (now renamed as IBM Business Consulting Services).

"Springboard’s innovative research model relies heavily on technology and global delivery, and it helps the company stand out as a clear-cut candidate for success in the Japanese market," said Ms. Kashiwagi. "I am excited at the opportunity to offer Springboard’s demonstrated expertise and research value to IT vendors looking to understand the complexities of Japanese market better," Ms. Kashiwagi added.

Ms. Kashiwagi holds an MBA from Hult International Business School, USA and a Masters degree in International Economics from University of Sussex, UK. She is a native Japanese speaker and is also fluent in English.

Jeff Kaplan, founder and managing director of THINKstrategies and a consultant with Cutter Consortium, has partnered with Renovatix Solutions to extend his SaaS Showplace with an online store for SMBs. The partnership provides visitors with easy access to the Renovatix online store designed for SMBs.

Currently, individual company listings in the SaaS Showplace do not link directly to the Renovatix SMB store and there is no special pricing for SaaS Showplace members.

Under the partnership, Jeff also will provide guidance to Renovatix Solutions on their catalogue of SaaS applications and will identify additional partnership opportunities.

"We're really excited to be working with Jeff Kaplan and THINKstrategies to accelerate the growth of our client-branded SaaS marketplaces, including leading application providers on the SaaS Showplace," said J. Scott Robinson, General Manager, Renovatix Solutions. "As we surveyed the landscape of SaaS professionals, it became clear very quickly that Jeff is the thought-leader in this burgeoning space. We're privileged to have an association with Jeff and THINKstrategies."

Renovatix Solutions' SaaS marketplaces are uniquely designed to enable third-party administrators, including enterprises and other service providers, to private-label their SaaS eCommerce sites and give users single sign-on access to all of their applications. The marketplace offers application catagories from VoIP, Accounting, CRM, Web hosting, Web creation, and creative services, to inventory management, event management and a comprehensive suite of e-commerce tools.

Hurwitz analysts Judith Hurwitz, Robin Bloor, Marcia Kaufman, and Fern Halper announced their latest book, Service Management for Dummies.

The book takes a common-sense approach to explain the scope of IT services covering everything from understanding the importance of standards and best practices to virtualization in a service management world.

“What if technology was designed to serve the business at every time? If Service Management is done correctly it can transform the valued delivered to the customer and can change the fortunes of whole industries. This is the focus and purpose of Service Management for Dummies,” said Judith Hurwitz, president of Hurwitz & Associate

Increasingly companies are discovering that more and more components of their companies products are technology based including sensors in the factory floor and embedded systems in cars and hospital equipment. In addition, new business models are emerging based completely on delivering automated services to customers such as Netflix with its delivery of movies as a service.

”This is why the Service Management arena is exploding. Many executives are finding that applying service management principles to both the physical and IT world is transformational,” according to Hurwitz. “Don't let the name fool you,” notes Al Zollar, General Manager, Tivoli Software, IBM Software Group, “this book is valuable for novices and seasoned professionals alike. It succinctly conveys the vital importance -- and real competitive advantage -- of adopting a comprehensive service management strategy for your organization. In today's service-driven economy, effective service management helps you transform all of your business and IT assets into services that your customers value and prefer. The real-world examples in the book do a great job of bringing these concepts to life.“

Service Management for Dummies is the third Dummies book written by Hurwitz & Associates. The team wrote two editions of Service Oriented Architecture for Dummies, published by Wiley Publishing in 2006 and 2008. The team’s fourth book, Cloud Computing for Dummies, will be published during the summer of 2009.

Books details:< "Service Management For Dummies". Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. Publication date: June 8, 2009. Suggested retail price: $29.99. Paperback; 336 pages; ISBN: 978-0-470-44058-2

Eight industry analyst firms were added to the Tekrati directories of high tech industry analysts during May 2009.  The May additions are Pike Research, Neovise, Demartek, Unwired Insight, Altimeter Group, Techaisle, Lopez Research and GigaOM's GigaOM Pro. Featured analysts and analyst bloggers during the month of May included Alvaro Fernandez, SharpBrains; Richard Stiennon, IT-Harvest, R Ray Wang, Forrester Research; and Craig Mathias, Farpoint Group.

The three Tekrati directories make it easy for tech decision-makers, tech providers, analyst relations managers, journalists, bloggers and events producers to locate tech industry analysts with specific expertise. There is never a charge or upgrade fee for any listing. Tekrati revenues are based on annual subscriptions to the premium Analyst Profiles directory and on influencer marketing & influencer relations consulting services provided by Tekrati managing editor, Barbara French.

The May 2009 analyst firm additions at a glance:

Pike Research is a market research and consulting firm that provides in-depth analysis of global clean technology markets.  The company’s research methodology combines supply-side industry analysis, end-user primary research and demand assessment, and deep examination of technology trends to provide a comprehensive view of the Renewable Energy, Clean Transportation, Clean Industry, Green Consumers, and Environmental Management sectors. 

Focused at the confluence of business and technology, Neovise delivers innovative and actionable assessments of vendor offerings, technologies, market developments, competitive dynamics, user challenges and other critical topics in the information technology market.

Demartek provides real-world, hands-on research & analysis by focusing on industry analysis and lab validation testing of server, network, storage and security technologies, for the small and medium business (SMB) environment and the large enterprise. Demartek conducts research and lab testing resulting in white papers and product comparison reports.

Unwired Insight, formerly known as Sound Partners, is an independent research and consultancy company that advises the world's leading companies on wireless technologies and services. Over the past seven years, more than 100 companies worldwide have benefited from our expertise. Please contact us if you think we may be able to help you.

Through Altimeter Group, Charlene Li offers research, consulting and speaking services on digital strategy.  Speaking services include conference keynote presentations and paid speeches for company-sponsored events. Li is an independent thought leader on emerging technologies, with a specific focus on social technologies, interactive media, and marketing. She discusses these topics at her business blog, "The Altimeter".  She is also the co-author of the business bestseller, "Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies".

Techaisle is the next generation market research organization for the IT Industry. We bring a fundamentally lower cost structure for worldwide data collection, analytics and delivery. For product and marketing groups, this translates to lower prices, higher flexibility and access to the critical information required to stay on the competitive edge. Our MarketView portal is one of the most comprehensive market sizing databases in the industry, integrated across all Regions, Countries, IT Categories, Vertical Markets and Customer Segments as well as other data dimensions.

Lopez Research, founded by Maribel Lopez, offers vertical industry custom market research and strategy consulting.  The company specializes in the telecommunications, media and entertainment markets (TME). Its mission is to understand the evolution of these industries, provide thought leadership, and assist its clients in building winning market strategies.

GigaOM Pro is a new approach to research focused on delivering timely, high-value reports and analysis for technology innovators and insiders at a fraction of the cost of traditional market research vendors. Organized around technology verticals, GigaOM Pro provides subscribers with in-depth market research on emerging technologies, including Green IT, Infrastructure, the Connected Consumer, and Mobile, as well as daily insight into developing trends and events.

For more information, contact editor@tekrati.com.

Evans Data Corp today announced Evans Data Market Alert, a new service that examines major events or offerings that impact the software development landscape. The first in the series examines Intel’s recently released Parallel Studio.

The Evans Data Market Alert series will be published quarterly and will focus on products or events that make a significant difference in software development.

The first Evans Data Market Alert includes data from the most recent Evans Data Global Development Survey of over 1200 developers. Parallel Studio brings parallel programming into the mainstream Windows environment by providing multi-threading tools for Visual Studio users. Parallel Studio provides a C/C++ compiler with pre-threaded libraries that developers can use right out of the box, plus a performance analyzer, and a debugger with memory and thread error checker. It works with Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 so developers can start parallel programming for Windows today.

"This is a highly strategic move for Intel," said Janel Garvin, Founder of Evans Data. "Multicore processors are a current reality for most computer users, but multi-threaded applications that take advantage of their capabilities are a rarity -- mostly because of the complexity of writing them. Intel has suddenly shifted the software development landscape with the release of tools that allow the large universe of Visual Studio users to exploit the performance and scaling opportunities inherent in multicore processors."

The first Market Alert publication is available for free download at the link below.

Dan Kusnetzky has joined The 451 Group as vice president of research operations. In addition to heading up research operations, he will ramp up The 451 Group's market research and analysis on cloud computing and virtualization. He is a well-established analyst and blogger with a reputation spanning his own analyst practice as Kusnetzky Group, his ZDNet blog and more than a decade with IDC.

"Our clients rely on us to provide straight talk about who wins and who loses as a result of disruptive changes in IT," said Martin V. McCarthy, Chief Executive Officer of The 451 Group. "And cloud computing is one of the most profound changes we have seen in two decades. Dan's addition will be key to helping us assess the viability of these and other emerging segments for vendors, investors, bankers and technology end users."

Dan Kusnetzky brings The 451 Group more than three decades of industry experience. Before joining the senior team of The 451 Group, Kusnetzky was Principal Analyst at KG LLC. Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President of Corporate and Marketing Strategy for Open-Xchange, a software company that provides open-source collaborative solutions.

Kusnetzky also spent 12 years at International Data Corporation (IDC), four of them as Vice President of System Software Research. During this time, he led an extended team of 16 analysts and created an industry-leading research practice based on both quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Prior to that, Kusnetzky spent 16 years with Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), where he was responsible for program and product management and marketing in the areas of client software, server software, and clustered and networked systems, and he had the responsibility of being the Intel/UNIX Business Manager.

He continues his ZDNet blog, Virtually Speaking.

Editor's Note:  I'm archiving Kusnetzky Group from the Tekrati Analyst Firms Directory, Analyst Blogs Directory and Analyst Profiles Directory, and transferring Dan's profiles to The 451 Group.

Om Malik is expanding GigaOM beyond news and events into the subscription-based research and analysis business. The new service, dubbed GigaOM Pro, is focused on delivering timely, high-value reports and analysis for technology innovators and insiders at a fraction of the cost of traditional market research vendors. 

Organized around technology verticals, GigaOM Pro provides subscribers with in-depth market research on emerging technologies, including Green IT, Infrastructure, the Connected Consumer, and Mobile, as well as daily insight into developing trends and events.

In addition, the GigaOM Pro subscribers can engage and discuss the research both with the analysts and among themselves. The service is deployed on a custom blogging platform (WordPress MU + BuddyPress) specially designed for community interaction around premium content.

Subscribers receive access to all GigaOM Pro content and forums, including archived Weekly Updates from the expert curators, Long Views and Quarterly Wrap-ups from editors and technology insiders, and in-depth Research Briefings and Notes from the GigaOM Analyst Network.

GigaOM Pro promises to be a serious contender in the tech research space.  It launches with an aggressively low $79 introductory price and the prestige and reach of the GigaOM brand. Rather than employ a staff of analysts full-time, GigaOM Pro contracts with analysts for its research reports and services. Thus, it extends a cooperative hand to several elite analysts working solo or on small teams.

Om Malik tapped Michael Wolf to head the new research service. He credits Wolf with putting together the impressive line-up of experts participating in the GigaOM Analyst Network. As of today's launch this roster includes renown tech industry analysts Chetan Sharma, Rachel Happe, Steve Hawley and Clint Wheelock.

Other influential experts onboard include TechAlpha partners Juergen Urbanski and George Gilbert; Phil Hendrix, the founder of the Institute for Mobile Markets Research; and TDG's Michael Greeson, Colin Dixon and Andy Tarczon.

The GigaOM Pro website offers 17 inaugural reports and samples of a Research Briefing, Long View and Weekly Update.

TechCrunch has edged further into the syndicated research business, the traditional turf of analyst firms such as Gartner, Forrester Research, IDC, Burton Group, et al, with the release of the TechCrunch 1Q 2009 Report. The idea behind TechCrunch Research is elegantly simple: package up quarterly reports based on the open source CrunchBase wiki database, sell the reports at economical price points and promote the service across the TechCrunch media network.

The TechCrunch 1Q 2009 Report provides key take aways and statistical support for the major trends of Q1. The report covers trends in start-up foundings, products, financings and exits across a variety of technology sectors: consumer media and entertainment, social networking, cloud computing, mobile communications, search, advertising and ecommerce, consumer electronics and clean tech.

The first premium research product, the TechCrunch 2008 Year in Review, was released in February 2009. According to TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld, that report "takes a step back from the news that breaks day-to-day and provides a unique perspective on the major trends of 2008. We cover new products, financings and exits across a variety of technology sectors: search, social networking, cloud computing, mobile communications, advertising and ecommerce, consumer media and entertainment, consumer electronics and clean technology."

MORE ON MY BLOG: What are the implications for analysts and influencer relations managers? Hint: This isn't about the upfront revenues from selling research reports, or annual subscriptions. There is a discussion of 4 implications -- 2 for analysts, 2 for AR and influencer relations -- at my Sway blog, "TechCrunch muscles in on syndicated research".

AMR Research, a leading research firm focused on the global supply chain and supporting technologies, released its Supply Chain Top 25 today, an annual ranking that highlights companies that display superior supply chain performance, capabilities, and leadership.

Since 1986, AMR Research has studied and fostered the revolution in supply chain as a professional discipline and as a competitive weapon for companies in the post-industrial economy.  The governing principle of this emerging discipline is something AMR Research calls demand driven, which was coined in 2003 by the company and means "global supply chains built to serve customers with both operations and innovation excellence."

The Supply Chain Top 25 identifies those Fortune Global 500 companies that have best demonstrated applying this principle of being demand driven. In up and down markets, the list of the Supply Chain Top 25 companies has repeatedly outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and NASDAQ. Last year’s list beat the markets by 6 to 10 percentage points.

The AMR Research Supply Chain Top 25 for 2009 is:

1. Apple

2. Dell

3. Proctor & Gamble

4. IBM

5. Cisco Systems

6. Nokia

7. Wal-Mart Stores

8. Samsung Electronics

9. PepsiCo

10. Toyota Motor

11. Schlumberger

12. Johnson & Johnson

13. The Coca-Cola Company

14. Nike

15. Tesco

16. Walt Disney

17. Hewlett-Packard

18. Texas Instruments

19. Lockheed Martin

20. Colgate-Palmolive

21. Best Buy

22. Unilever

23. Publix Super Markets

24. Sony Ericsson

25. Intel

"Over the past five years, this report has chronicled the emergence of new ideas like the build-to-order model pioneered by Dell or the emergence of content-based value chains exemplified by Apple and Disney," said Kevin O’Marah, chief strategy officer at AMR Research. "While economic uncertainty slowed demand, companies on this year’s list used demand-driven principles to detect a troubled economy early and secure their cash positions well enough to maintain momentum on vital initiatives. 2010-2011 will show how such foresight pays dividends with greater supply chain agility and the ability to tackle competitors and deliver huge earnings in the climb out."