Trend Spotting
BERNIE BORGES is the chief “find”
officer of Palm Harbor-based Find
and Convert, a web marketing and
search engine optimization agency.
He identifies three trends in his field:
1) Companies are still marketing in a
down economy; 2) video is hot; and
3) companies now need exposure
beyond marketing via search engines.
“Despite the gloom and doom of the economy, companies are largely
allocating marketing dollars to the web – and cutting away where
they are not getting results,” he explains. “My whole industry – and me
– are in good times right now because companies know that marketing
on the web is where they need to be.”
Borges says marketers are embracing online video as a way to tell
stories, engage people and allow videos to get passed around. In a
recent survey, emarketer.com noted that two-thirds of the companies
surveyed planned to direct their online budgets to online videos.
“Clients don’t even have to produce their own video,” says Borges
(www.findandconvert.com). “If the video is relevant to their community,
customers will still come to it.”
Besides search engine marketing, Borges says, companies should
embrace the “social web.” That means being active in social networking
sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, and micro blogging sites like Twitter.
Being absent from the social web is dangerous inaction, he says,
because companies run the risk of letting conversations happen – without
them.
“When we talk to businesses about everything I just described, some
say they don’t have the time,” Borges says. “I tell them they better make
the time.”
Gimme Some Space
Spatial Networks, a geospatial data solutions company, acquired Tampa-based TrekServ, LLC , a privately held global tracking technology firm. The two companies had already been in a strategic partnership for the last two years.
Spatial Networks founder Anthony J. Quartararo says he started the Clearwater-based company nearly a decade ago to focus on geospatial consulting and strategic research, but over time expanded
to include
product development.
“And by purchasing TrekServ, we added
its proprietary, patent-pending technologies
that provide secure, global tracking of
mobile assets and at-risk personnel to our
product offerings,” he says.
Quartararo says the acquisition was
seamless. “The two entities were already
very compatible in corporate culture, business
philosophy and focus on the customer.”
Spatial Networks’ flagship product, Geodexy,
is a web-based application designed
for the collection and management of location-
centric data for a broad cross-section
of government and business sectors.
In 2008, the company (www.spatialnetworks.com) upped its
staff from six to 24. Quartararo says the company is “a debt-free,
profitable and financially stable organization.”
A Merger of Like Minds
Tampa’s Tribridge (www.tribridge.com) merged with Navint
Consulting (www.navint.com), a similarly-minded business software
and IT services company based in Rochester, N.Y. The newlyformed
company will be called Tribridge, says Tribridge Chairman
and CEO Tony DiBenedetto. The merger – a stock transaction
with no cash exchanged – was under consideration for nearly two
years.
“You have to have similar cultures and strategies
and treat customers the same way. Navint and Tribridge
had that,” says DiBenedetto. The merger gives
the new company a portfolio of complementary,
diversified IT services. It also created one of the larger
Microsoft consulting firms with capabilities across all
Microsoft business applications and technologies,
says DiBendetto.
Both companies had a strong 2008, he says. “Both
of us grew, and had record revenues and profits. We
are anticipating 20 percent growth in 2009.”
Tribridge hired a number of new employees since
announcing the merger, Di Bendetto says, and expects
to add more to service its more than 2,000 customers
nationwide.
The In IT Look
Clearwater’s Haruspex (www.haruspex.com) is polishing its
image. The company, which offers IT support and services, is rebranding and overhauling its website to create a new look and feel,
says Jennifer Godin, the company’s newly-hired marketing and public
relations manager.
“The company hadn’t done much (marketing) before, and what it
did was a bit outdated. Sure it was appropriate for the time of founding,”
says Godin of the 18-year-old, 10-employee company, “But not
anymore.”
Haruspex, is a certified partner for both Microsoft and Southware
Innovations, and its clients are primarily distribution companies. Many
use its warehouse automation software, and most of its 50 customers
are in Florida and have an import/export component.
Incubating Software
Tampa’s Panther International LLC formed a strategic alliance with
The Enterprise Center, a Chattanooga, TN, incubator that assists emerging
technology-based businesses. Panther (www.pantherinternational.com)provides design and development services to government agencies,
corporations and non-profits. One of the objectives of the partnership
is to develop a software application to streamline the tracking and
monitoring of grants undertaken by the center.
“We are in the process of establishing a presence in Chattanooga
and the collaboration with The Enterprise Center is a key relationship for
us,” says Panther CEO and President Chase Stockon.
Wayne Cropp of The Enterprise Center says the intent is to “create
a dashboard system for tracking, managing and reporting on a system
of metrics that aligns The Enterprise Center’s goals with its grant milestones,
grant progress reports and other reporting requirements.”
Founded in 1994, Panther’s BlackCat Grant Management System
manages more than $6-billion in grant funds in the transportation and
housing industries.
Tech FYI
Citrix Systems (www.citrix.com) of Ft. Lauderdale is holding a free,
ongoing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Expert Webinar series to
bring industry experts, partners and customers together to share the
business benefits and best practices of desktop virtualization … TraderPlanet.
com of Tampa Bay , a social networking site for traders and
investors, introduced the TraderPlanet Index, a compilation of individual
traders’ opinions on the degree of bullish or bearish sentiment for several
key market sectors … Tampa’s IT Authorities (www.itauthorities.com)
chose Tampa’s Persystent Technologies’ (www.persystentsoftware.net)
Perysystent Suite to help recovery of PCs when a disaster occurs.
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