Vintage Filings Business Blog

By Benjamin Blascoe

Marc Andreessen, web guru of Netscape and other profitable i-ventures, has announced that he and his partner Ben Horowitz are to launch another venture into the thriving technology industry. Andreessen and Horowitz have been partners for quite some time now and judging by their past precedence, this new venture is sure to be lucrative.

The company, cleverly dubbed Andreessen Horowitz, will be an investment firm centered on the best new entrepreneurs, products and companies in the technology industry. Taken from Andreessen’s Blog “…between the two of us, Ben and I have started three companies directly, created many new products and services, run operating businesses at high levels of scale, angel invested in 45 tech startups in the last five years, and served on a broad cross-section of company boards with some of the best entrepreneurs and investors in the industry.”

But the organization will not be as effortless as it seems with these two geniuses behind the wheel. The technology and products Andreessen Horowitz is concerned with all focus on human progress on a worldwide scale – meaning if “it” improves standard of living, improves human potential or even unlocks new technology to a broader range of human beings, Andreessen and Horowitz are interested.

Should make for an interesting firm that will most likely be at the forefront of tomorrow’s technology. Read more at Marc Andreessen’s Blog.

Large and medium-size businesses are increasingly planning to invest in IT products and staff as confidence among IT decision makers begins returning to the corporate sector. However, earlier signs of IT investment among small businesses have slipped.

In the government sector, federal government IT decision makers are showing an even higher leap in confidence.

Sentiment remains stable across the broader IT marketplace, according to the latest CDW IT Monitor, with gains in some areas balanced by uncertainty among the small business and local government sectors. The overall CDW IT Monitor score across both corporate and government sectors remained flat at 69 for the third consecutive reading.

Signs of anticipated growth in investment that first appeared in the April CDW IT Monitor are now becoming much more visible. Eighty-three percent of medium-size businesses expect to purchase new software in the next six months and 28 percent of large businesses expect to hire additional staff in the next six months, both up five percentage points since April. Additionally, 52 percent of federal IT decision makers anticipate budget increases in the next six months, an increase of 17 percent since April and the largest leap in the government sector to date.

However, this rising sentiment is not shared by all sectors. After signs of increasing confidence earlier in the year, fewer small businesses and local government organizations anticipate budgets to improve. Only 21 percent of small business IT decision makers and 17 percent of local government IT decision makers expect IT budgets to increase in the next six months, down eight and six percentage points, respectively, since April.

“This downturn has not followed the path of previous ones, making it more difficult to predict the shape of the recovery,” said Mark Gambill, the company’s executive responsible for market insights. “But IT confidence has held steady for nearly four months, and we’re now beginning to see signs of a patchy turnaround with medium and large businesses anticipating future growth.”

“The unsteady nature of this turnaround is demonstrated by the slight decline in small business confidence. Larger companies have been aggressively managing costs as well through this period, but there comes a point when investments have to be made.”

The Social Media Academy has released its first corporate research report today, exposing the social media status of six global enterprises including Dow Chemical, John Deere, NetApp, New York Life, Toyota, and Vodafone. The report was generated based exclusively on publicly available data by dissecting the social web. The data was aggregated from over one million people who publicly expressed their opinions and emotions in social networks, groups, communities, forums, blogs and other social media related places. The “Mind Share Report” demonstrates not only that social media is used by businesses across all industries but also that it poses a significant threat to companies who do not understand how publicly available information can be used by their competitors to create devastating effects.

The report provides insights into each company’s brand position, their customers’ sentiment, partner engagement and touches on the competitive threats to which the companies are exposed.

Social Media Academy founder Axel Schultze, an accomplished entrepreneur, book author and social media strategist said: “We had a pretty good understanding about the estimated outcome – yet it was shocking to realize how vulnerable businesses are that stay away from social media. The present case demonstrates how a small group of social media savvy consultants can compromise a global enterprise based on publicly available data.”

For each of the researched companies the report shows the customers web locations, some opinion leaders and influencers, depicts the sentiment of the discussions & posts and provides an overall impression as well as a detailed analysis as to what those customers like or dislike, what their needs are and what they are excited about. For instance Jenny Rairigh from Pennsylvania stated on Mar. 17, “Traded our Toyota for a Ford Edge. First American car purchase in a LONG time. Feeling patriotic.” In another example Janita Pavelka an influential networker with over 2,000 followers on Twitter commented, “Yes, we are moving to 21 acre farm and looking for a tractor. A used John Deere would be ideal I think. What do you think?” It underscores that companies either better service those customers or open a door for the competition.

Janice Chai-Chang, one of the students said: “We worked with over 10 different reporting tools mostly from new software companies focusing on social media analytics. Having said that, most of the analysis was performed using methods and models created by the Social Media Academy to eventually compile such a report.”

The year 2008 may be gone, but it is definitely not forgotten. Every American is feeling the impact of the country’s economic battle and is making substantial changes to their everyday lives and shopping habits to stay afloat. Because changes have been broad and deep, the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry must stay on their collective toes and respond to continually changing rituals with a new level of deftness, according to the latest IRI Times & Trends Report. The report explores CPG industry performance during the past year and provides insights on what to expect in 2009.

IRI has studied this economic transformation since the beginning and has divided 2008 into two stages. Stage I, “Shocking the System,” took place in Q108-Q308 and was characterized by an unprecedented rise in energy and food prices.

“Consumers reacted with sharp cutbacks to purchases overall and began a re-evaluation of what, why, where and when they buy food and center store items,” says IRI Consulting and Innovation President Thom Blischok. “Shoppers took a new look at old spending habits and started to make significant changes.”

Stage II, named “A Refocus on Impact,” began in Q408. During this quarter, commodity prices moderated and energy prices plunged, but consumers continued to cut back. Surprised and concerned by the severity of price increases and the credit crunch earlier in the year, shoppers did not re-open their wallets as prices moderated.

January 2009 began Stage III, “The Lasting Reality.” With the continuing rise in unemployment, ongoing weakness in the banking system and credit structure, and a belief that energy prices will increase again in the near future, consumers remain extremely skeptical. Among consumers earning more than $100,000, there are few signs that shoppers are backing away from their most extreme cost-cutting behaviors; but among all other income groups, the wallet remains closed.

“Recessions expose the health of CPG manufacturers and retailers,” continues Blischok. “Innovative companies thrive, while weaker companies struggle and fail. To be a success in this recessionary environment, you must anticipate and respond to change before it happens. This is instrumental in establishing long-term shopper loyalty even after the economy gets back on track.”

So what steps do businesses need to take?  IRI recommends the following action steps that retailers and manufacturers can take to improve market share, shopper loyalty and financial position in today’s economy:

• Planning: Shoppers are making most decisions before they enter the store. Manufacturers and retailers should shift merchandising and promotion strategies into people’s homes via traditional media and online social media.
• Purpose: Consumers have changed their rituals and are cooking more at home with fresh ingredients and are bringing snacks and lunches from home to work. Manufacturers should make fresh ingredients more available and rewire their snack strategy. Retailers must make it easy for shoppers to find these ingredients and supporting products in their stores.
• Price: Shoppers demand good prices and quality in what they buy. Manufacturers and retailers should redouble their collaboration strategies to offer consumers the best value possible.
• Product: Shoppers are buying familiar products, so new product experimentation is at an all time low. Manufacturers should consider an enhanced brand-extension strategy. Retailers can increase shelf space of existing brands at the expense of new products.
• Promotion: Shopper direct marketing has arrived and will become a strategic differentiator. Manufacturers and retailers should develop new media strategies which will ensure consumers’ maximum exposure to marketing messages.
• Place: Shoppers are looking for the best deals wherever they can find them. Loyalty to a channel/banner is only as good as “what have you done for me lately?” Manufacturers and retailers must review and update the value proposition of products and stores.
• Permanence: Shoppers are deeply worried about the future, and many changes they are currently making will last. Manufacturers must update their management structure in a way that facilitates an ongoing ability to offer new shopping experiences that address evolving consumer needs.

Global wind energy capacity grew by 28.8% last year, even higher than the average over the past decade, to reach total global installations of more than 120,800 MW (120.8 GW) at the end of 2008. Over 27,000 MW (27 GW) of new wind power generation capacity came online in 2008, 36% more than in 2007.

“These figures speak for themselves: there is huge and growing global demand for emissions-free wind power, which can be installed quickly, virtually everywhere in the world. Wind energy is the only power generation technology that can deliver the necessary cuts in CO2 in the critical period up to 2020, when greenhouse cases must peak and begin to decline to avoid dangerous climate change,”said Steve Sawyer, Secretary General of GWEC. “The 120 GW of global wind capacity in place at the end of 2008 will produce 260 TWh and save 158 million tons of CO2 every year.”

Wind energy is now an important player in the world’s energy markets. The global wind market for turbine installations in 2008 was worth about 36.5bn EUR or 47.5bn US$.

“Wind power is often the most attractive option for new power generation in both economic terms and in terms of increasing energy security, not to mention the environmental and economic development benefits. Volatile fossil fuel prices and unreliable supply policies from fossil fuel rich countries increase the risk of relying on conventional sources for power production,” said GWEC’s Chairman, Prof. Arthouros Zervos. “The wind industry also creates many new jobs: over 400,000 people are now employed in this industry, and that number will be in the millions in the near future.”

Substantial growth in user generated content has opened new opportunities for Internet security threats, according to a new report by Commtouch. The fourth quarter 2008 Internet Threats Trend Report, released today, is based on the automated analysis of billions of email messages and Web sites in real-time at Commtouch’s Global Detection Centers.

Highlights from the report:

• Streaming media and downloads are among the top 10 website categories infected with malware and/or manipulated by phishing. These are two of the most popular categories within user generated content sites.
• McColo, one of the largest hosts of cyber-criminal gangs, was effectively shut down in November 2008, causing spam levels to drop to one-third their usual level for several weeks.
• Spam levels averaged 72% of all email traffic throughout the quarter, falling briefly to 59% following the McColo closing in November.
• An average of 301,000 zombies were newly activated each day for the purpose of malicious activity.
• Brazil led in zombie computer activity, producing 14.6% of zombies at the end of the quarter.
• Spammers continue to exploit legitimate sites like Google docs to bypass content filtering systems.

“With user generated content on blogs, file sharing platforms and social networks having experienced huge growth over the last few years, spammers and malicious script writers are finding new ways to engage users,” said Amir Lev, chief technology officer of Commtouch. “An increasing number of blended threats have emerged as new opportunities to infect users’ machines have arisen. These kinds of sites have become targets for new, more elaborative schemes, and users, vendors and service providers must beware and employ protection measures.”

Statistics continue to support the claim that “green” is important for today’s business professionals and consumers. According to Office Depot, sales of environmentally preferable products represented in The Green Book, the Company’s catalog of green products, increased by more than 10 percent in the contract channel in 2007. This can be attributed in part to a growing interest in green behaviors by small businesses, according to a survey released by Office Depot. The survey found:

• Sixty-nine percent of small business professionals participate in one or more of the following activities: recycle paper, bottles, ink cartridges and/or technology; purchase Energy Star rated technology, recycled paper, remanufactured ink and toner cartridges, refillable products and Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs; and print on both sides of the paper.
• Eighty-five percent of respondents claim they are doing so for one of two reasons: to protect the environment, or to save money.

According to Office Depot, sales of environmentally preferable products represented in the 2007 Green Book, increased by more than 10 percent in the contract channel in the United States. Office Depot said that sales in The Green Book climbed from $660 million in 2006 to $725 million in 2007. The statistics were reported recently in the Company’s 2008 Corporate Citizenship Report.

If you deal with consumer transactions, this new research report offers some very important information regarding how your customers value their personal data.  Solidcore Systems has just released the results of a consumer confidence survey linked to data security at retail locations. Solidcore surveyed more than 500 consumers nationwide about credit card use, and to gauge their privacy fears and buying habits when shopping at various retail stores. The survey illustrates that consumers are concerned retailers are not doing enough to protect their personal data, and that these consumers will evaluate the risk of data breach when deciding whether or not to use credit cards at retail locations.

An overwhelming majority of consumers (81 percent) believe that some retail locations are safer than others for using credit and debit cards, and most (74 percent) would not shop where they feel their financial or personal information may be at risk. Among the consumers polled, the greatest fear is that credit and debit card payment processing systems (also known as point of sale systems) may be vulnerable to fraud or data theft. Furthermore, a significant majority of respondents would feel safer if the retailer’s point-of-sale (POS) system was certified by a trusted third-party.

Solidcore conducted this survey of more than 500 consumers from a variety of socio-economic demographics nationwide. Key findings include:

Majority of consumers worry retailers aren’t doing enough to protect data — Among the chief concerns of consumers, 42 percent of respondents worry that POS systems are insecure or at risk of fraud, while only 4 percent worry their receipt will be stolen.

Consumers will not use credit or debit cards when retailers seem untrustworthy — 81 percent of consumers acknowledge that some retail locations are safer than others for using credit and debit cards, and 74 percent of consumers acknowledged they would never shop at a retail store they feel puts their information at risk. However, 21 percent said they would sometimes shop at a “risky” retailer.

POS security certification can alleviate consumer buying fears — 83 percent of respondents felt that an industry-standard certification of POS systems from a trusted third-party would make them feel more comfortable about shopping with the retailer. Currently no industry standard exists, but retailers working with Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs) to implement security solutions can gain a degree of confidence that permeates the organization.

“This study was conducted to better understand consumer confidence in light of the more than 500 large security breaches that have occurred this year alone, according to the ID Theft Resource Center,” said Anne Bonaparte, president and CEO of Solidcore. “Overwhelmingly, consumers are concerned with how retailers handle their personal information and are likely to take their business elsewhere if they feel their information is at risk. Retailers that are truly concerned with protecting their brand must begin to place the highest priority on securing store systems, starting with POS systems. This becomes even more important as retail shopping increases for the upcoming holiday season.”

Online social networking has steadily taken a hold of the financial community, with investing based social networks like WallStreet.net and CakeFinancial.com having firm market holds.  However with their expansive list of pre-existing user base, it appears that Scottrade could become the Facebook of investing social networks.  They’ve launched an online social networking community to empower customers to communicate directly with each other via a password-protected Web site. The site is available to all Scottrade customers.

In the Scottrade Online Community, customers can:

• Interact directly through discussion groups and blogs with other Scottrade investors and traders, providing a unique opportunity for peer-to-peer education.
• Share customized ScottradeELITE layouts and Trade-Ideas filters as well as other files, ideas, strategies, tips, articles, layouts, filters and spreadsheets, giving Scottrade customers a new resource in making more informed trading decisions.
• Provide feedback directly to Scottrade product specialists who develop and manage the trading tools, products and platforms used by Scottrade customers, allowing Scottrade customers to have a true voice in their own trading experience.
• Learn from blogs written by Scottrade platform managers and experts. A library of educational podcasts on Scottrade products and services provides another way to learn.

“Scottrade’s Online Community is a complement to our offline education efforts and further solidifies our commitment to educating our customers so they can make better-informed investment decisions,” said Kevin Dodson, Scottrade’s Director of Online Financial Services.

Scottrade’s Online Community launched quietly in April to select customers and is now open to all Scottrade customers. The Community is part of the firm’s overall strategy of providing more investment information and resources to its customers so they can be more successful investors and traders.

“Today’s investors and traders thrive on information. Scottrade’s Online Community is a whole new way for our customers to get information,” said Kristin McDougall, Customer Education Manager at Scottrade. “Best of all, the information is coming from people who are just like them. Our customers find that very meaningful.”

“Being connected with a friendly Community like Scottrade’s has been very refreshing,” said Wendy, a Scottrade customer and Online Community member who goes by “mrscashflow” online, and also uses Scottrade’s El Segundo, Calif. office. “I found Scottrade’s Community to be a very inviting place to hang out and it’s easy to get around the neighborhood. It is a friendly group of people that are serious about making money in the stock market.”

Scottrade offers customers free educational opportunities through several channels, including the online brokerage industry’s largest branch network, User Summits and articles and information on Scottrade.com and its trading platforms. User Summits are one-day seminars that bring Scottrade experts into the communities where Scottrade customers live and offer the chance for traders to network and learn about the firm’s trading tools and platforms.

As businesses get more and more mobile, it is becoming critical to have access to your financial data whether you are at the office or on the road.  And with this knowledge, Intuit announced both iPhone and BlackBerry integration with QuickBooks Online, my personal favorite for small business accounting software.

Now the more than 130,000 small businesses that subscribe to QuickBooks Online have even more freedom to manage their business anywhere, anytime – with or without a computer. These early version Web-based mobile applications are part of Intuit’s Connected Services strategy to help entrepreneurs connect to their data when and where they need it.

Available on IntuitLabs.com, an early concept release site, these iPhone and BlackBerry applications help QuickBooks Online users get an up-to-date view of their finances by:

• Checking current bank and credit card balances.
• Tracking who owes them money and who they owe.
• Finding vendor and customer contact info with addresses via Google Maps.
• Running balance sheet and profit and loss reports.

“QuickBooks Online is perfect for us as there is no ‘office,’ just volunteer member parents working from various home or work offices,” said Laura Olcott, treasurer for Twin Cities Co-op Preschool in Corte Madera, Calif. “Given the virtual nature of our interactions, iPhone support helps us be more productive. While waiting for an appointment, I was able to check QuickBooks Online using my iPhone to look up parents with open balances and send them an e-mail reminder to pay their bill.”

“A growing number of small businesses are looking to mobile technology to run their business,” said Rick Jensen, senior vice president of Intuit’s Small Business Division. “Our goal with these new mobile services is to give QuickBooks Online users the edge they need to compete and manage their busy lives by keeping tabs on their business even when they are out of the office.”