Nice to be Noticed – Forrester Analyst Calls BEA and Elastic Path a Smart Match

Regular readers know that we pay close attention to what the analysts are talking about when it comes to ecommerce. Reports from Marketing Sherpa’s 300 page marketing tome to Forrester’s enlightening ecommerce treatises are thoroughly digested as we examine industry trends and memes to improve our flavor of ecommerce software.

Besides the benefits of learning, we are also cognizant of the value of positive analyst comments. To get this invaluable ’stamp of approval,’ we must at least try to get noticed since analysts’ opinions are a key piece of the puzzle for many decision-makers - indeed good reviews are as valuable to software vendors as they are to local restaurateurs.

Alas, as a small-ish company - despite our noteworthy software and innovative efforts – it’s not always easy to get noticed by the high-end analysts. As a result, in these reports, we are often reading about our competitors rather than ourselves.

Frustrating? Maybe a bit but it is all part of growing as a company and carving out a seat at the table with the big players.

Since the BEA announcement (Elastic Path eCommerce is now also BEA AquaLogic Commerce Services AKA ALCS), analysts are a fair bit more, shall we say, ‘chatty’ with us. This increased interest in EP is partially a sign of BEA’s great reputation cultivated over the years (thanks eh) and also indicative of our marketing outreach efforts.

Forrester, maven of all things e-commerce, addresses both of these drivers in Tamara Mendelsohn’s April 5, 2007 blog post “BEA is back in eBusiness.”

“It’s a good match - BEA saw a chance for a quick solution to re-enter the market, and Elastic Path saw a quick solution to moving up market. Or the alternative might be that after attending Internet Retailer last year, BEA was hypnotized by the contortionists in sparkly blue body suits. Whatever the truth, I think it’s a smart match.”

Well, it is nice to be noticed, and the contortionists were really there to reinforce our brand message of ‘flexibility,’ which wasn’t lost on Mendelsohn, “This makes it a good fit for BEA’s AquaLogic platform, also built on standards and touting flexibility.”

While the contortionist show at Internet Retailer last year did get attention, the real show is behind the scenes at the Vancouver HQ where the collaboration, innovation and hardcore coding happen (even when the Canucks playoff hockey game is on).

In my just-about-one-year here, Elastic Path has more than doubled in size, added over 60 new customers, released 2 new versions of the core software and added a few new components to the inventory, appeared in dozens of press clipping, released 30+ podcasts, 3+ white papers and traveled to a dozen countries meeting with customers and systems integrators. In other words … while we are small-ish, we are doing some big-ish things.

Tamara did manage to stir up a bit of uhhh … discussion … around here with a snippet of acquisition speculation, saying, “If successful, I wouldn’t be surprised if Elastic Path goes the Fuego route and ends up as a BEA company.” I think half the company was Googlin’ up Fuego at the same time!

Really, we’re happy being “just friends” with BEA and are enjoying finding more and more ways to help their customers with a seamless integrated environment. And yes, we are enjoying being noticed.

Bonus:

For more on BEA’s ALCS announcement, check out Josh Lannin’s blog and his comments on Tamara’s article. Some of the EP crew met up with Josh at the kick-off event in Las Vegas (note to self: make a podcast about this) and his blog has become a great source of info for us.

Forrester’s Charlene Li wrote a great report called “The Real ROI of Blogging” which came out around the same time as my “Blogging for Retailers” paper – they make a great duo if I say so myself – one is free, the other is $379 – both are worth the price ;-).