November 2003

Threshold News

A new resource for competitive intelligence

Most companies now have some sort of Web presence, and major corporations can have dozens of active sites and reserved domain names. By giving convenient access to current registration and historic ownership data for Internet addresses, the Dialog Domain Names database is emerging as a valuable competitive intelligence tool. At Threshold we're finding increasing opportunities to put the database to use.

The Domain Names database, jointly produced by The Dialog Corporation and SnapNames.com, Inc., is a unique reference source for determining ownership of top level domain names. The database is updated monthly and now has close to 100 million records of current registrations ("Who Is" records) and historical registrations ("Who Was" records). There is no free access to this kind of data that approaches the database in comprehensiveness or richness of information.

Domain Names provides another layer of understanding when developing a company or competitor profile. A well-constructed search can reveal the extent of a company’s current presence on the Internet, provide some insight into company organization, and, because Domain Name registration for a product-related site often happens before a product is introduced, even give early warning of new products or programs.

Threshold researchers use the database to track domain ownership and registrations as part of competitor monitors. We've also begun including it as a regular component of one-time research projects about specific companies – especially when traditional sources yield limited information.

Opportunities In Business

We have to start meeting this way…

Web conferencing is gaining momentum so rapidly that a recent InfoWorld article refers to the “stampede” to provide Web access to collaborative tools. Web conferencing is the last of the four “load-bearing walls of the collaborative eco-system” to reach maturity. (E-mail, instant messaging (IM), and portals are the other walls of the business collaboration structure.)

Web conferencing promises total communications effectiveness, helping simplify and economize not only “inward-facing” communications, but, more and more frequently, "outward-facing” contacts as well. Virtual relationships with customers, external partners, and suppliers are nourished and maintained in new ways when sales and service functions, and others who need to effectively reach people outside the organization, use Web conferencing.

The latest Web conferencing applications incorporate both IM and voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) technology to replace telephone conference calling, thereby lowering cost. VoIP is inexpensive to provide and the technical glitches that marred its early years are gone. Where VoIP is installed, conference calls can be casually initiated by clicking on contact names in an IM window. Web conferencing with live video is not quite as well-developed or inexpensive as VoIP and IM, but is becoming increasingly common.

Web conferencing tools remains somewhat pricey, but a host of competitors are challenging market leader WebEx. Prices are expected to come down in 2004, especially as VoIP PBX vendors drive down the telephony costs. On the other hand, for the immediate future, videoconferencing via the Web is likely to continue to command relatively high prices.

To learn more: A simple Google search will direct you to sites for vendors of Web conferencing technologies. For background information, we recommend the white papers offered by First Virtual Communications and the very recent RoperASW survey sponsored by TANDBERG. You might also want to read InfoWorld’s “Collaboration Changes Focus,” Communications Convergence's “Barriers to Entry,” or CFO’s "Collaborative Computing.” Finally, Wainhouse Research is a consultancy and market research firm that focuses on this space.

Opportunities in Technology

MEMS: Are micromachines the next big thing?

When it comes to technology, smaller is better – or so it appears from the hot topics we've observed in the recent business press. Tiny as a speck of dust, microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, are starting to appear in commercial applications such as consumer electronics and automotive systems. Business 2.0 listed MEMS among the "Best New Technologies of 2003" in its November issue.

Larger than nanotechnology applications (which we'll discuss in next month's Opportunity Knocks), MEMS are functional micromachines that use mechanical pumps, valves, cantilevers, gears, or switches to perform physical tasks. Applications in the news include inkjet printer and hard-disk drive heads and automobile tire pressure sensors, acceleration sensors, and airbag controls, among many others. One article even saw potential for the use of MEMS in wristwatches where files could be sent by shaking hands.

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, funds MEMS research through a program within its Microsystems Technology Office. DARPA has worked with scores of companies, including TI, Rockwell, Analog Devices, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, Silicon Light Machines, Agere, CoreTek, Siemens, and Raytheon, on component fields such as inertial measurement MEMS and optical MEMS. For more information, visit DARPA's MEMS program Web page.

Business 2.0 put the market size in 2003 at $3.9 billion, increasing to $8.3 billion in 2007. Industry growth is forecast in the fields of medicine (e.g., pumps for drug delivery systems), and telecommunications (optical switches for fiber optic networks). Sony last month announced plans to open a center for mass-producing MEMS parts, which it will use in its own digital home appliances as well as selling them to other companies.