Header:  September 22, 2004
Three of the World’s Top Female Scientists Will Speak at the Kentucky Center – Ayanna Howard, Helene Andersson, and Erin Lavik
Louisville Women in Technology presents the first ideaFestival event in our market with short lectures and a panel discussion by three of the world’s top female scientists in Clark Todd Hall at the Kentucky Center.
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For More Information:
Dawn Marie Yankeelov
President, ASPectx and VP of Programs, Louisville Women in Technology
(502) 292-2351
dawny@aspectx.com

Louisville Women In Technology Presents the First ideaFestival Event in Louisville

Three of the World’s Top Female Scientists Will Speak on Sept. 22nd at the Kentucky Center—Ayanna Howard, Helene Andersson, and Erin Lavik

June 30, 2004–(Louisville, KY)—Louisville Women in Technology presents the first ideaFestival event in our market on Sept. 22, 2004, with short lectures and a panel discussion by three of the world’s top female scientists from 7 PM to 10 PM in Clark Todd Hall at the Kentucky Center. The general public is invited. The event is entitled, “Innovation and Transformation: Big New Ideas.” Tickets went on sale today from Ticketmaster, The Kentucky Center, and The ideaFestival (www.ideafestival.com). College students can receive discounted tickets direct at the Kentucky Center for $18. Online purchases can be made via www.ticketmaster.com or www.ideafestival.com. Or, purchase your tickets direct at the Kentucky Center for $25. There will be a free reception preceding the event at beginning at 5:30 PM in Barnes Hall at the Kentucky Center. The three women, Ayanna Howard, Helene Andersson, and Erin Lavik, were named to MIT’s TR 100 list (the top 100 scientists in the world) for 2003/2004 as acknowledged recently in MIT’s Technology Review Magazine. They will discuss their cutting-edge work as well as other important advances they “see” emerging on the horizon. The noted scientists will bring their diverse backgrounds to the panel discussion on trends and technology issues facing today’s lifestyles.

Dr. Ayanna Howard of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, has led research efforts on various projects utilizing robotics, and artificial intelligence. Last year she released to the public her Artificial Intelligence Toolkit, which has more than 80 users. In 2001, Dr. Howard received the Lew Allen Award for Excellence in Research—the highest honor possible at NASA JPL. Currently, she is a senior member of technical staff with the mobility systems concepts development section. She also holds the title of Deputy Manager for the Strategic University Partnership Office under the Office of the Chief Scientist.

Dr. Helene Andersson, Business Manager for Life Science at Silex Microsystems AB in Stockholm, Sweden, focuses her research on micro and nano-fluidic devices for biotech applications. She is also currently a research associate at the Royal Institute of Technology in the Microsystem Technology Group and at MESA + Research Institute in the Lab-on-a-chip group. She holds several related patents and is a member of the editorial board of Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical.

Dr. Erin Lavik, an assistant professor in biomedical engineering at Yale, currently works on applying principles of tissue engineering and drug delivery to the development of new environments which are capable of promoting repair in the central nervous system. She is also a playwright.

This ideaFestival event, sponsored by Inter-tel, is only one of more than 40 events during the week of Sept. 21-25, 2004 as part of The ideaFestival. Events will be held this year in Lexington, Northern Kentucky, and Louisville. This is the third annual event which reached more than 7,500 people, students, and professionals in 2002 in the Lexington, Ky. region.

For more information on the ideaFestival, go to www.ideafestival.com. A full pass to all ideaFestival events, including Sir George Martin, Twyla Tharp, and Oliver Sacks is $220.

August 5, 2004
Silicon River GeoDesigns Announces Dawn M. Yankeelov As Chief Marketing Officer
“Dawn’s seasoned corporate branding and communications experience at global and high tech companies will add tremendous value as she directs Silicon River GeoDesigns’ Go-To-Market plans,”
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Silicon River GeoDesigns Announces Dawn M. Yankeelov As Partner In Venture

Louisville, KY – August 5, 2004 – Silicon River GeoDesigns (SRG), LLC, the Who’s Who of Louisville Metro Hi-Tech, today announced Dawn M. Yankeelov as Chief Marketing Officer and Partner.

“Dawn’s seasoned corporate branding and communications experience at global and high tech companies will add tremendous value as she directs Silicon River GeoDesigns’ Go-To-Market plans,” said Shawn Riedling, Silicon River GeoDesigns President. “We are extremely pleased to welcome her to the team and will rely heavily on her expertise. We look forward to her contributions.”

Dawn have more than 18 years experience in web consulting and technology marketing sectors. Her clients as an independent practicioner have included: AMP Inc., General Electric Co., Microdyne Corp., as well as successful startups, like Intellon Corp. and Genscape Inc., among others. Her expertise in marketing, branding and public relations will be a strong asset as we execute our key strategic initiatives.

The Louisville Metro Tech Map
The Louisville Metro Technology Map is a new and exciting way to brand your company’s standing in the fast-growing and dynamic high-tech community of metropolitan Louisville. Designed to create a dramatic visual statement, the Louisville Metro Tech Map highlights innovative companies and helps people recognize the great number and quality of local high-tech organizations. The 2005 classic edition of the Louisville Metro Tech Map will be distributed in December 2004.

About Silicon River GeoDesigns, LLC
Silicon River GeoDesigns, LLC (SRG) is a new firm that seeks to foster and encourage the national recognition of the metropolitan Louisville region as a dynamic and progressive high-tech asset. Founded as a joint venture between T. Shawn Riedling and Angela Ciliberti-Riedling. SRG’s intention is to accomplish the following objectives:

*Promote the recognition of metro Louisville as a high-tech community to national & regional markets.
* Identify and highlight high-tech organizations within the metro area.
*Educate the general public on the high-tech competencies of local organizations.
*Develop a new branding tool that will graphically describe the wealth of high-tech companies and organizations within the metropolitan Louisville area.

For more information on the Louisville Metro Tech Map, please contact SRG at (502) 228-9053, or visit the web site at http://www.SiliconRiverGeoDesigns.com

Shawn Riedling, President
Shawn@SiliconRiverGeodesigns.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Silicon River GeoDesigns Announces Dawn M. Yankeelov As Partner In Venture

Louisville, KY – August 5, 2004 – Silicon River GeoDesigns (SRG), LLC, the Who’s Who of Louisville
Metro Hi-Tech, today announced Dawn M. Yankeelov as Chief Marketing Officer and Partner.

“Dawn’s seasoned corporate branding and communications experience at global and high tech
companies will add tremendous value as she directs Silicon River GeoDesigns’ Go-To-Market plans,”
said Shawn Riedling, Silicon River GeoDesigns President. “We are extremely pleased to welcome her
to the team and will rely heavily on her expertise. We look forward to her contributions.”

Dawn have more than 18 years experience in web consulting and technology marketing sectors. Her
clients as an independent practicioner have included: AMP Inc., General Electric Co., Microdyne
Corp., as well as successful startups, like Intellon Corp. and Genscape Inc., among others. Her
expertise in marketing, branding and public relations will be a strong asset as we execute our key
strategic initiatives.

The Louisville Metro Tech Map
The Louisville Metro Technology Map is a new and exciting way to brand your company’s standing in
the fast-growing and dynamic high-tech community of metropolitan Louisville. Designed to create a
dramatic visual statement, the Louisville Metro Tech Map highlights innovative companies and helps
people recognize the great number and quality of local high-tech organizations. The 2005 classic
edition of the Louisville Metro Tech Map will be distributed in December 2004.

About Silicon River GeoDesigns, LLC
Silicon River GeoDesigns, LLC (SRG) is a new firm that seeks to foster and encourage the national
recognition of the metropolitan Louisville region as a dynamic and progressive high-tech asset.
Founded as a joint venture between T. Shawn Riedling and Angela Ciliberti-Riedling. SRG’s
intention is to accomplish the following objectives:

* Promote the recognition of metro Louisville as a high-tech community to national & regional
markets.
* Identify and highlight high-tech organizations within the metro area.
* Educate the general public on the high-tech competencies of local organizations.
* Develop a new branding tool that will graphically describe the wealth of high-tech companies
and organizations within the metropolitan Louisville area.

For more information on the Louisville Metro Tech Map, please contact SRG at (502) 228-9053, or
visit the web site at http://www.SiliconRiverGeoDesigns.com

Shawn Riedling, President
Shawn@SiliconRiverGeodesigns.com

For More Information:
Dawn Marie Yankeelov
President, ASPectx and VP of Programs, Louisville Women in Technology
(502) 292-2351
dawny@aspectx.com

Louisville Women In Technology Presents the First ideaFestival Event in Louisville
Three of the World’s Top Female Scientists Will Speak on Sept. 22nd at the Kentucky Center—Ayanna
Howard, Helene Andersson, and Erin Lavik

June 30, 2004–(Louisville, KY)—Louisville Women in Technology presents the first ideaFestival
event in our market on Sept. 22, 2004, with short lectures and a panel discussion by three of the
world’s top female scientists from 7 PM to 10 PM in Clark Todd Hall at the Kentucky Center. The
general public is invited. The event is entitled, “Innovation and Transformation: Big New Ideas.”
Tickets went on sale today from Ticketmaster, The Kentucky Center, and The ideaFestival
(www.ideafestival.com). College students can receive discounted tickets direct at the Kentucky
Center for $18. Online purchases can be made via www.ticketmaster.com or www.ideafestival.com. Or,
purchase your tickets direct at the Kentucky Center for $25. There will be a free reception
preceding the event at beginning at 5:30 PM in Barnes Hall at the Kentucky Center. The three
women, Ayanna Howard, Helene Andersson, and Erin Lavik, were named to MIT’s TR 100 list (the top
100 scientists in the world) for 2003/2004 as acknowledged recently in MIT’s Technology Review
Magazine. They will discuss their cutting-edge work as well as other important advances they “see”
emerging on the horizon. The noted scientists will bring their diverse backgrounds to the panel
discussion on trends and technology issues facing today’s lifestyles.

Dr. Ayanna Howard of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, has
led research efforts on various projects utilizing robotics, and artificial intelligence. Last
year she released to the public her Artificial Intelligence Toolkit, which has more than 80 users.
In 2001, Dr. Howard received the Lew Allen Award for Excellence in Research—the highest honor
possible at NASA JPL. Currently, she is a senior member of technical staff with the mobility
systems concepts development section. She also holds the title of Deputy Manager for the Strategic
University Partnership Office under the Office of the Chief Scientist.

Dr. Helene Andersson, Business Manager for Life Science at Silex Microsystems AB in Stockholm,
Sweden, focuses her research on micro and nano-fluidic devices for biotech applications. She is
also currently a research associate at the Royal Institute of Technology in the Microsystem
Technology Group and at MESA + Research Institute in the Lab-on-a-chip group. She holds several
related patents and is a member of the editorial board of Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical.

Dr. Erin Lavik, an assistant professor in biomedical engineering at Yale, currently works on
applying principles of tissue engineering and drug delivery to the development of new environments
which are capable of promoting repair in the central nervous system. She is also a playwright.

This ideaFestival event, sponsored by Inter-tel, is only one of more than 40 events during the
week of Sept. 21-25, 2004 as part of The ideaFestival. Events will be held this year in Lexington,
Northern Kentucky, and Louisville. This is the third annual event which reached more than 7,500
people, students, and professionals in 2002 in the Lexington, Ky. region.

For more information on the ideaFestival, go to www.ideafestival.com. A full pass to all
ideaFestival events, including Sir George Martin, Twyla Tharp, and Oliver Sacks is $220.

Dr. Howard
Dr. Andersson
Dr. Lavik

====================================================================================================

ASP Selection Process

By Dawn Marie Yankeelov

Choosing to outsource part or all of your IT needs through an Application Service Provider can present a daunting task of now reviewing more than 630+ such named products worldwide. And, if you really want to be relatively thorough in your competitive intelligence you can visit The ASP Consortium website, a not-for-profit advocacy organization, (www.allaboutasp.org) and click on each member link. However, there is a less time-consuming methodology to follow to narrow the field.

IT Consultants and related web strategists suggest you use the following criteria for evaluating ASPs:

• Ascertain ASP’s primary business focus to make sure it meets your standards for the horizontal or vertical products selected.

• Determine the ASP’s size, coverage, and ability to provide service in the regions you need it.

• Evaluate the company’s operational excellence by discussing their automation processes for additional users and their available help documentation on products marketed.

• Review the technologies for (a) data management; (b) application management; and (c) change control management.

• Make sure you know how your data is secured in their system architecture.

• Know and understand the uptime you will require of a vendor and read the Service Level Agreements from each ASP under consideration.

• Discuss your company’s future growth with the ASPs of most interest to determine if they will be able to grow with you.

• Gather all financial information necessary to compare and contrast fee structures for installation of each desired application, help desk support, additional provisioning of new users, and monthly per user subscription fees.

“Choosing an ASP can save you money, but evaluate it as just another IT choice. . . Your ASP relationship should also be looked at in human terms. Where is this ASP going and what will it mean to our future,” explained Bill Martorelli, Vice-President of eServices and Sourcing for the Hurwitz Group, a consulting firm based in Framingham. Mass.

Martorelli indicated that security issues are high on his lists on evaluation factors. “It’s easy to show a physical approach to security like a state-of-the-art data center, but an ASP customer needs to ask about how his company’s data will be stored. Not all of the customer’s data will end up on a dedicated server. What are the possibilities of another customer having access to critical business data?,” he pointed out. “Often times, it will be true that an ASP can provide a higher-degree of security over than of most customer’s internal systems,” he added.

There are numerous other selling points of an application service provider, according to the Mike Dahan, director of eBusiness Hosting for Breakaway Solutions which offers front-end ebusiness consulting and high-end ASP solutions as a full service provider. “First and foremost, with an ASP solution you should get a much lower upfront costs than doing-it-yourself, and a predictable, reoccurring charge you can afford.”

He cited three areas to make sure you investigate—an ASP’s people, process, and technology. Topping his list for going with an ASP model:

1. An ASP can be a quick way to add new applications without spending the dollars necessary to outright own the system.

2. An ASP often provides a method to create a relationship with a secure data center that should offer the stable, level of infrastructure that most companies need.

3. An ASP provides ongoing application support generally with help desk services, upgrades, and virus protection.

4. Implementation and integration answers are not always found within your organization for new applications.

The complexity of what is defined as hosted application management can be the real difficulty is finding the best ASP match for you, continued Dahan. For example, Breakaway Solutions categorizes its services this way: (a) Managed Hosting—racking and stacking hardware and internet connectivity management; (b) Application Infrastructure Hosting—support for the databases, web servers, but not the applications themselves; (c) Application Hosting—all above services mentioned including application hosting; and (d) Additional Managed Services, such as enhanced security; and enhanced monitoring.

The biggest “gotcha” that ASP users face, he explained, is the 24/7 support paradox. “Just because an ASP claims 24/7 support that doesn’t mean that it is true round-the-clock availability. A lot of companies put monitoring tools on the applications and the hardware, however your contract only include steps to alert you and not to fix the problems as they arise.” He added that many companies may equip a help desk representative with a pager and that’s your support. Dahan pointed out, “For a company to run a true 24/7 dedicated help desk there must be a minimum of seven employees in that area for round the clock coverage.”

Edina, Minnesota-based Cherry Tree & Co., which offers investment banking services for IT firms, in a recent report emphasized the changing value themes of ASPs and suggest that the wisest choices for companies purchasing services will be in choosing those with domain expertise. Companies like Peopleclick.com, and Employease have made domain specialization their model. Peopleclick delivers e-cruiting software that provides hiring process management, and applicant tracking functionality to HRP professionals who are managing high volume hiring campaigns, including Ericsson, and Morgan Stanley.

Employease offers a business-to-business network with access to human resources, benefits, and payroll applications via the Web. The network connects employees, insurance companies, managed care organizations, and other relevant service providers and has more than 1,000 clients.

ASPs as a whole will look to offer what customers want in the way of cross-application integration for turnkey ecommerce solutions and wireless access to devices via handhelds or smart phones.

Mobile computing will become another ASP way for an end user deploy its applications. Several companies have already begun to offer this type of service. A New York City-based ASP called Mi8 Corporation offers wireless connectivity to its Microsoft Outlook & Exchange mailbox functions through its Mi8’s Wireless Palm Service. Using a wireless Palm device, connected to a wireless network, users can send and receive email, view and schedule appointments, and manager their contacts and tasks from anywhere, anytime. Mi8’s service supports PDAs, the Palm VII and the Palm V and Vx with wireless cradle from Palm Inc.

As ASP players differentiate themselves even further, it will become more important to know where an ASP company begins and ends its services. Consultants say that pricing structures will vary widely due to emphasis of the company. Martorelli of the Hurwitz Group indicated that, “In this marketspace, there’s not a great deal of thorough total cost of ownership analysis yet. I think it is plausible to believe widely-accepted numbers of 20 to 40% cost savings with an ASP implementation.” Most pricing choices will include a monthly fee per user, but buyers beware of consulting fees, infrastructure investments, and connectivity charges that come along with subscriptions.

Infrastructure ASPs may call themselves Managed Service Providers or Infrastructure Management Providers and provide an additional layer of network and data center management software between ASPs and their Web hosting partners. Key areas of infrastructure management for companies like DataReturn, and Broadwing, may include: network and application monitoring and testing; database architecture and management; systems and network management and capacity scaling and load balancing with security.

The Full Service Provider, such as Breakaway Solutions and Millennia Vision Corporation, is often an ASP that started as an IT services firm and offers an end-to-end solution encompassing IT consulting, application development and hosting, systems integration, and ecommerce builds.

Internet Business Service Providers focus on delivering web-based solutions in a hosted model, such as Agillion, and other providing basic messaging services.

An ASP aggregator, such as Jamcracker, offers multiple platform solutions with some opportunity for a small to medium-sized business to get the best-of-breed applications while avoiding the need to manage multiple hosting contracts and systems. There is also a single point of contact for technical support issues.

Vertical Service Providers are ASPs that specialize in specific industries, such as Andalon in legal and health care services.

Once the type of ASP services is known and the capabilities are defined, the final measure in choosing an ASP, may well be its service level agreements. The ASP consortium has a short report available that discusses what to ask in detail. A company prepared to use an ASP must know just what they mean by “uptime,” and what will happen in the event of “downtime.” Many ASPs are willing to deliver 99% uptime, but the real task is in understanding the definitions in the SLA. Potential ASP clients should not be afraid to ask for addendums and make adjustments as they see fit. Martorelli of the Hurwitz Group said, “In the world of SLA witchdoctory, an ASP can usually meet an SLA terms, but this may not meet the customer’s needs. The notion that penalties take the place of performance is cold comfort to the end user. Every SLA should be reviewed with on eye on plausible escalation.”

The ASP Aftermath: Considerations and Calculations in the Outsourced Relationship

By Dawn Marie Yankeelov

Once you’ve signed with an Application Service Provider you may be so relieved, it’s off to another IT issue. However, during the early months you will begin to measure whether your needs are met or unmet in practice. And, then there are remedies or upgrades that may be required of the ASP or yet another ancillary, but support vendor, such as training for your internal IT staff.

Timing of Performance Benchmarks

“The true measure of your ASP relationship is service and delivery,” said Jim Clishem, CEO of Xodiax, a Louisville-based data center that works with ASPs as clients. Clishem suggests it will be a four-to-six month cycle of evaluation before you can be sure of the primary performance metrics: redundancy, availability, and reliability.

Dave Nass, Global Partner of Solutions Operations for Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) in Chicago, agreed that a certain amount of time should be allowed to an ASP for stabilizing operations and putting appropriate customer support into action. He suggests that, as a rule of thumb, basic messaging and email services should be stable in a month. More sophisticated applications, such as time and expense reporting, should be stable in four to six months. In highly complex ASP installations involving Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software from SAP or similar vendors across multiple countries should be given up to a year to shakeout all concerns.

Nass pointed out that while outsourcing as a concept has been around for many years in the IT community, the traditional Accenture Fortune 1000 clients are accustomed to up to five year contracts. Often there are issues of great importance, such as pension liability and large expenditures that had to be weighed in. “Many ASP models allow for far less expenditures than in the past. ASPs are often far less sensitive to contract duration, and offer a cleaner transaction than other outsourcing options,” he added. The typical ASP contract is two years; some are now offered at three years with renewable terms.

He said his consulting often involves defining the role of an ASP, or, in some cases, multiple partners for his clients. ASP as a term can refer to hosted applications, web-based outsourcing, business service providers (BSPs) who offer consulting, and alliances with third party hosters, data centers, and other telcom companies.

Going Up or Down in Seats

The test of time rules for an ASP often come down to the terms negotiated for growth or shrinkage. ASPs are typically selling seats in a subscription model on a per seat/per month charge. Terms are generally spelled out as to the caps or collars on growth or downsizing. If not, Accenture and Xodiax counsel clients to ask questions even after a contract closes. These terms can be renegotiated, if circumstances change in big ways. Notably for growth terms—seat subscription terms can be negotiated to be more favorable to your favor.

Multiplying Complexity with Multiple Vendors

If one ASP relationship has been useful, it doesn’t always stand to reason that two or three are better. “This is going to require a serious look at the affective user communities. If the communities don’t overlap, then there will be minimal complexity in multiple relationships,” explained Nass. It is when a customer attempts to launch several ASP relationships at once that the complexity becomes overwhelming to an internal IT department. “When you start getting overlapping initiatives in the same user community, two or three is all that can be truly handled under the best of circumstances,” Nass said. He said vertical ASPs could compliment the use of a messaging email ASP, given the right scenarios.

Accenture encourages customers readied for multiple ASP plays to look at ASP aggregators, like Jamcracker. Jamcracker, in part funded by Accenture, assists in finding the right players and offers one SLA, one set of passwords for logins to multiple ASPs and other simplifications for clients.

Clishem at Xodiax suggests a three phased approach to decision-making from doing homework to extended interview to trial period before settling on several ASP choices. “Pragmatically it is just so much easier to manage fewer relationships,” he said.

Asking for Help

Once in an ASP relationship success or failure may be keyed to whether you ask for the necessary support—both on a customer service level relating to the ASP’s help desk services, and in adjunct training.

There should be three tiers of customer support offered by the chosen ASP vendor: (!) first call where 50% of all concerns are solved; (2) user help which means advanced technical support; and (3) guru level or access to system engineers, when necessary. Nass at Accenture said he believes most ASPs do well at tier 2 support, but many expect the customer to handle tier 1 calls internally. “If customers as a rule believe they will get good tier 1 support, they will get disappointed,” Nass said.

The metrics to use for evaluation of an ASP is how many calls get resolved within the agreed upon timeframe.
Training may be required on some applications within a user community, even though most ASPs attempt to bypass this service offering with low-end, no training needed solutions. “In most cases, an end user doesn’t just sit down and figure it out. It is never too late to ask about training the trainers inside your company,” said Nass. Vertical ASPs may be able to recommend training partners, but it is not advisable to rely on an ASP for all your internal training needs.

Legal Counsel and Remedies

First and foremost before finalizing a contract with an ASP, several individuals within your organization should be consulted outside the CIO. Since ASP contracts include Service Level Agreements which are nontrivial to mission-critical data, a company attorney or outside legal counsel should be consulted. In addition, the business sponsor of the service or affected department needs to sign off. “Often this signoff is more important than the CIO in actual implementation issues. The CIO must be included because of standards, compliance, and interoperability,” Nass said.

Even after launch, coupled with internal inter-departmental support, the SLA and the ASP contract terms should be reviewed by the company attorney. Customers of ASPs can always go back to the negotiating table on the SLA, confirmed Clishem and Nass.

The Service Level Agreement often becomes one of the most sensitive documents to be signed or renegotiated, based your need for uptime. An average SLA will promise up 3 “9”s or uptime 99.9% of the time with some penalty time. No matter what an ASP presents, it is up to you to ask for a custom SLA that you can live with. “You must look at it as you would a disaster recovery plan. Understand the critical-ity. We encourage clients to push back and ask for what they really want. Some managed service providers like Loudcloud offer a 100% guarantee,” said Nass. The most critical question is not how many “9”s are offered. It is: what’s the remedy? Some price points for downtime do not adequately compensate a corporation for its downtime.

There is no list of industries that should play more attention to an SLA than another. “Any customer with mission critical data is one that needs an adequate SLA,” said Clishem.

He uses the following questions as a data center to determine the appropriate service level:

1. Will your customer’s monies not come in due to the downtime? This would be especially true in an ecommerce environment.

2. Will you lose an opportunity to save costs? This would be true in a transportation company, such as an airline that uses an online reservation system with other applications.

3. Will you lose good will if your application doesn’t run either within your company or with your customers? This might be true especially in organizations or trade associations.

At this time there is no “Better Business Bureau” concept in place policing ASPs. Some ASPs voluntarily participate in certification programs. For example, IBM puts its data centers involved in hosting through an ISO 9000 team assessment.

Clients with more than $60 million in revenues using an ASP should spend the time getting acquainted early on with their ASP. “See where respective companies are going early on and see if this fits with your corporate vision of where you are going. An ASP relationship should be a robust and thick relationship,” Nass said.

Case Study: November 2001-April 2002

Genscape Launches It New Product Offerings to The Power Market

Goal: Assist in Marketing Support for New Product Offerings and Branding of a New Company Important to the Power Energy Trade

Client Profile:

ASPectx team members assisted in the development of an appropriate marketing/PR campaign and necessary content for collateral materials to support the continuing growth of sales within the Genspace subscription model. Genscape offers real-time power plant and transmission line status information for energy traders, power plant and transmission and distribution system managers, fuel suppliers and regulators. The Genscape approach involves news alerts, data visualization, and raw, real-time statistical data for energy monitoring and known output. At this time there is no competition, which also means the energy industry must accept the data as credible and the highest standard for trading before a sale can be made. Marketing, public relations, and business development were generally designed to support an increase sales of defined packaged services or products; provide branding and credibility for new products or services; create market awareness in new sectors; provide backup documentation for the sales channel; and continue a steady communication to maintain an acceptable awareness among existing customers for referrals and other upsell opportunities.

Situation:

Genscape received second round financing and had begun the process of growing the company’s staff and capabilities. The focus was still on pure sales and the management team decided marketing/PR could provide some exposure to support the sales effort. ASPectx was hired to participate as the fill-in for temporary staff to evaluate what could and should be done in the marketing department.

The Program:
ASPectx worked through the following steps with Genscape:

1. Executed competitive intelligence on key energy trader accounts and determine the contact most likely to be the buyer within the organization.
2. Created an expert status and established firm credibility that locked up the leadership role in this area before other competitors begin market penetration
3. Determined adjunct products/services that can be provided either in conjunction with base product or as subsets for other related markets and name developed packages.
4. Determined and weighed the importance of various mediums to get the word out.
5. Determined a development process and schedule accordingly for necessary tactics to be carried out.
6. Defined strategic business relationships desired and pursue necessary meetings to explore opportunities with a pre-planned agenda.
7. Measured impact as the collateral materials and other content delivery (speeches, etc.) were introduced to the desired audiences.

Benefits of ASPectx Approach:

*The president of ASPectx served as an adjunct marketing executive for Genscape, sitting in key internal strategy sessions, and offering counsel.
*ASPectx assisted in evaluating key business development opportunities within the trade and made calls to gather more important data on these relationships and their potential.
*ASPectx compiles a key media list of key energy trade editors and began the process of making the editors aware of Genscape as a new company, brand and product offering.
*ASPectx was able to do a media tour to NYC to secure interest of key editors in the trade for story content.
*Collateral material, trade show booth, and giveaway concepts were developed and executed for the company’s first trade shows.
*Pre and post trade show calls, faxes, and emails were sent to prospective customers.
* All trade show activities were coordinated through ASPectx and ASPectx evaluated all trade show opportunities, making critical recommendations based on knowledge and experience.
*Emarketing was used to begin a company newsletter.

Results:

The company has achieved its first solid sales and its products were endorsed recently by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Media coverage assisted in developing the overall credibility needed to land the first large contracts, notably one with Platts, an energy publication owner and energy services firm.