Alterian Share Discussion Threads

[rivaldo] 15/8/2010 07:23

Good to see someone else posting here Kimball88!

News - ALN is working with its client Microsoft to port ALN's solutions to cloud computing:



"Alterian Brings Web and Social Media Engagement Solutions to the Cloud
Alterian delivers cloud-powered customer engagement solutions to enterprise marketers on Microsoft's Windows Azure Platform.

Microsoft is a current user of Alterian's offerings and we see great potential in bringing Alterian's solutions to the cloud. We are confident that the Windows Azure platform will allow Alterian to enhance its position as a world-class provider of customer engagement solutions. London, UK (PRWEB) August 12, 2010

Alterian (LSE: ALN), the leader in customer engagement technology and solutions, today announced plans to port Alterian's Web and Social Media Engagement Solutions to the Microsoft Windows Azure platform.

Alterian will work with Microsoft to build web applications and services which will allow Alterian's customers and partners to benefit from the global presence, real-time scalability, high availability and on-demand infrastructure of the Windows Azure platform. While initial development areas will focus on Alterian's Web and Social Media Engagement Solutions, other applications will be available in the cloud over time.

"We are pleased that Alterian has chosen the Windows Azure platform as its cloud computing platform," commented Prashant Ketkar, senior director of product marketing, Windows Azure. "Microsoft is a current user of Alterian's offerings and we see great potential in bringing Alterian's solutions to the cloud. We are confident that the Windows Azure platform will allow Alterian to enhance its position as a world-class provider of customer engagement solutions."

"Smart marketing is all about intelligently listening to customers, learning from them, understanding what needs to be done from a customer engagement perspective, and then proactively speaking to customers in a way that is win-win for everyone involved," said David Eldridge, CEO of Alterian. "To do this across all communications channels, you need great software. Alterian already has this, but now we're also coupling our software with the world-class cloud computing infrastructure offered by the Windows Azure platform, bringing a wide range of benefits to our customers."

Providing Alterian solutions on the Windows Azure platform offers the following key benefits to Alterian, its customers and business partners:

Global Access to Computing Resources. Alterian supports its customers globally with offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Many Alterian customers operate globally, and Alterian itself has been aggressively expanding its global presence. The global nature of Microsoft's cloud computing platform allows Alterian to serve the needs of its global customers in a flexible manner. The new cloud computing initiative will also enable Alterian to expand the number of geographic markets it serves with software on demand in a rapid and flexible manner.

Enhanced Agility. The elastic nature of the Windows Azure platform will allow Alterian customers to move quickly and address evolving marketing challenges and opportunities on short notice. By tapping into the power of the cloud, senior marketers will no longer need to ask IT for additional resources to undertake complex marketing analyses. And as customer requirements grow in these channels, the cloud allows these solutions to be scaled accordingly.

"Organizations are coming to terms with the fact that the socialization of the brand is here right now," said Michael Fisher, Alterian SVP Sales and Marketing, The Americas. "As businesses look to better engage with their customers, the cross-channel coordination of content and communications requires a nimble, agile and comprehensive platform. Integration of Alterian solutions and the Windows Azure platform provides brands with the necessary flexibility and access to achieve this.""

[kimball808] 13/8/2010 19:07

not sure, but its great that we are making some headway again, even when market is being as finicky as it is of late...;-)

[rivaldo] 13/8/2010 14:08

....and buying appears in the afternoon on the US market opening - American buying following the tip?

[rivaldo] 13/8/2010 08:14

Interesting - ALN have just been tipped by some US/Canadian tipsheet:



"Penny Stocks VIP Top Picks for August 11th : Alterian (ALN), Wendy's (WEN), © Marketwire 2010
2010-08-12 12:08:03 -

MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwire) -- 08/12/10 -- PennyStocksVIP.com brings powerful investing research, alert newsletters and training webinars and reports to the investing community. Our team specializes in finding companies that are ready for a breakout run or a sharp, profitable turnaround, and today would like to announce four strong companies: Alterian, Wendy's, Office Max, Cortez Gold

Alterian (ALN) has landed a deal which will allow entry into the Canadian market through FSA Datalytics. Access to a new market will offer new opportunities for Alterian to bring in strong profits."

[rivaldo] 11/8/2010 07:12

News:



"FSA Datalytics Partners With Alterian to Offer Innovative Marketing Engagement Solutions to its Clients

Marketing Service Provider selects marketing database, business intelligence, analytics, campaign management and social media monitoring offerings to enable personalized customer engagement solutions for North American organizations

As a result of this partnership, FSA Datalytics' clients will be able to more effectively mine direct marketing intelligence from customer and prospect databases, drive incremental revenues, and transform their marketing capabilities from good to great. Chicago, IL (PRWEB) August 10, 2010

Alterian (LSE: ALN), the leader in customer engagement technology and solutions, today announced that FSA Datalytics has partnered with Alterian to leverage Alterian's technology infrastructure as the core marketing management solution partner for its operations in Canada.

FSA Datalytics will use a wide range of Alterian's products and services to offer customized marketing database solutions, including Alterian's Social Media Monitoring, Email Deployment , Web Content Management, Campaign Management and Analytical Reporting.

Together, these offerings address a difficult and growing challenge in which marketers must respond to rapidly changing consumer demands and higher expectations for relevant, interactive communication across a range of channels, rather than untargeted advertising or outbound communication.

"Our clientele demand immediate and superior results from their marketing investment, so it was critical that we created a sophisticated marketing platform with a robust and forward-thinking feature set," said Jacob Ciesielski, Managing Director at FSA Datalytics. "We thoroughly evaluated the top marketing software companies and determined that Alterian's offerings are ahead of the competition with its features set, while providing the lowest total cost of ownership for our customers, as well as the quickest time-to-market capabilities."

This is a strategic partnership for FSA Datalytics, who strives to enable its clients to develop and deploy customized marketing engagement solutions to improve marketing results. Clients can procure hosted, software-as-a-service (SaaS) customer engagement solutions from FSA Datalytics or can engage FSA Datalytics to execute marketing programs on the client's behalf. FSA Datalytics' clients operate across a variety of marketing channels, including social media, mobile marketing, email and print.

"We are extremely pleased to add the very talented group at FSA Datalytics to our network of partners in Canada," said David Eldridge, Alterian Chief Executive Officer . "As a result of this partnership, FSA Datalytics' clients will be able to more effectively mine direct marketing intelligence from customer and prospect databases, drive incremental revenues, and transform their marketing capabilities from good to great." "

[rivaldo] 10/8/2010 12:02

Hello - something happening?

[rivaldo] 03/8/2010 16:10

Long-term uptrend continuing.

[rivaldo] 29/7/2010 07:11

New contract win:



"transavia.com chooses Alterian to manage and analyse marketing dataJul 22, 2010

Better understanding of the customer lifecycle improves targeted communication with the client Hilversum, 22 July 2010 –

transavia.com chooses the marketing databases and data analysis of Alterian for much of its marketing intelligence. This choice is an important step in transavia.com's efforts to professionalise its customer interactions. To support this strategy, transavia.com is looking to identify relevant points of contact throughout the customer lifecycle and link these to specific marketing activities. By choosing Alterian, the airline can quickly integrate information from multiple systems and sources into a single marketing database. With the help of powerful tools for customer segmentation and data analysis, this information can quickly be translated into targeted, relevant interactions with the customer.

Paul Jansen, Manager of Marketing Intelligence at transavia.com says: "Alterian is well equipped to capture the complexity and dynamic nature of our business. As we get started, the focus will be on data management and analysis. We will then gradually incorporate additional sources of information to help us refine customer profiles. Once we have the data organized, we will be able to look at the information from any number of angles. Depending on the point of contact, there will be many ways to access the data, for example data related to bookings and passengers. By quickly analysing and selecting information, we will be able to respond appropriately to specific customer needs, for example with targeted special offers."

"The personal approach to customer services that transavia.com is looking for is perfectly in line with our strategy of helping our customers achieve customer engagement", according to Hayo Baas, Business Solutions Consultant at Alterian. "By intelligently combining customer information and creating good profiles, transavia.com can build more effective relationships with its clients. This kind of targeted marketing also provides valuable input for future campaigns. In this way, customer engagement not only improves customer relations in the short term, but also provides a solid foundation for long-term success."

The airline industry is a dynamic one. Transaction volumes are high and there are many points of contact through any number of portals. Reaching clients effectively requires a precise and targeted use of up-to-date customer information and marketing data. The database that transavia.com previously used had limited capabilities and restricted the amount of data that could effectively be managed. There was only a single way of looking at customer data. Data analysis and segmentation were time-consuming and yielded only limited insights into specific customer needs. That database could no longer meet the needs of the marketing strategy at transavia.com.

In the process of selecting a new marketing database, the Marketing Intelligence department at transavia.com was impressed by what Alterian had to offer. The Alterian marketing database can compile and integrate information from a variety of sources, such as customer information systems, call centres, e-mails and complaints. This in combination with powerful analytics provides transavia.com with better insights in real time and facilitates making connections and linking data. This results in more complete customer profiles, making it possible for transavia.com to target segmented groups of clients at exactly the right moment. The ability to link directly to campaign tools and to integrate marketing results into the marketing database facilitates this process.

In the next phase, after improving its data management and analysis, transavia.com will be looking at the possibility of integrating solutions that manage marketing and e-mail campaigns. The open structure of Alterian's solutions provides transavia.com with a wide range of possibilities."

[rivaldo] 27/7/2010 12:52

Healthy trading going on - up on over 300,000 shares traded already today.

[yump] 26/7/2010 16:32

Yes there's a general feel of likely mergers and takeovers as some of the original enabling companies have now gained competitive advantage and scale, they've become valuable to larger marketing organisations. Its already happened in the affiliate world anyway.

[rivaldo] 26/7/2010 15:44

Nice move today - and 230k traded too (excluding PLUS trades).

[rivaldo] 25/7/2010 18:33

Interesting new article about takeover activity amongst marketing software vendors, with a few mentions for ALN - ALN are one of the few independents left.

The article quotes likely buyers as the likes of Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce etc:

[rivaldo] 25/7/2010 07:36

HB say Buy:



"Alterian (ALN, 147.75p, £86.53m),the leader in customer engagement technology and solutions reports an IMS from 1 April 2010 to 22 July 2010. Q1 traditionally represents a small proportion of FY revenues and this year is no different. Q1 2011's performance is in line with management expectations. The group continue to broaden their geographical distribution and their product development, especially in digital marketing. We reiterate our BUY recommendation."

[rivaldo] 24/7/2010 07:35

Panmure say Buy and have a 240p valuation:



"Alterian in line, no mention of spending cuts effect
Fri 23 Jul 2010

LONDON (SHARECAST) - Advertising campaign management firm Alterian said trading in its first quarter, which runs to the end of June, was in line with expectations for revenue, costs and cash flow.

"While the general economic climate remains challenging, progress with product and distribution together with the strong recurring revenue model, positions Alterian well to address the attractive market opportunity," the company said.

Echoing comments made by the management, Panmure Gordon noted that the first quarter is a "side-show" for Alterian which generates only a small proportion of full year revenues.

Nevertheless, Panmure analyst George O'Connor was pleased to hear there was no comment about the UK Public sector where Alterian has some exposure via its Web content management (aka MediaSurface) division. "We may have been too bearish here with our previous forecast cuts," O'Connor admitted.

"Alterian did not comment on the UK Public sector and so, in our view, it is unlikely to be feeling much 'heat' from recent government comments that it intends to shut down many of its websites," the broker said.

Panmure Gordon rates the shares a "buy" and has a target price of 248p for the stock."

[rivaldo] 23/7/2010 07:19

Decent trading statement. I think they've learnt the lesson that they should underpromise and overdeliver - "performance in that quarter was in line with management expectations for revenue, costs and cashflow" is perfectly reasonable and understated for the quiet first quarter.

The staff and product expansion reads well, whilst:

"progress with product and distribution together with the strong recurring revenue model, positions Alterian well to address the attractive market opportunity."

is promises nicely, but not overmuch. I do like ALN's recurring revenue though.

[kimball808] 23/7/2010 07:14

preferred the narrative of last year's TS, and the after effects....

[rivaldo] 20/7/2010 15:15

This reads well - sounds like ALN are expanding nicely in Asia and the Pacific:



"Alterian Signs Three-Year Deal with Macquarie Hosting
Asia-based customers to benefit from new Sydney Data Center
Sydney, Australia (PRWEB) July 20, 2010

Macquarie Hosting, a division of Macquarie Telecom, today announced it has signed a three-year, AU$1M hosting deal with world leading integrated marketing platform provider, Alterian.

The server hosting agreement will enable Alterian to address international data compliance hosting issues and provide its expanding customers based in Asia and the Pacific with an even better service by eliminating latency.

Alterian's marketing platform combines campaign management, web content management and email and social media monitoring tools, enabling organizations to build integrated communication strategies.

Chris Tew, Senior Vice President for APAC, Alterian, said Macquarie Telecom was selected in the tender based on the strength of its offering and support structure, which would help Alterian grow in the region and meet the needs of its expanding customer base, including leading international brands including Pizza Hut, Deutsche Bank, Philips, Pfizer, Vodafone, Westpac, Qantas, ING Direct, Vodafone and Dell.

"Macquarie Hosting's customer support offering, knowledgeable sales and strong technical group made the difference to Alterian. Most importantly, through the agreement we will have the ability to add hardware dynamically in short order to meet the rapid expansion Alterian is currently experiencing in the region," Tew said.

"By having customer support with Macquarie Hosting based in Sydney, Alterian will be able to service its customers far more effectively, during local business hours which will better suit the region," Tew added.

"Our customers also get local domains, local support, faster downloads and uploads, IP addressing specific to the region, and reports with local times. By having our data center located in Sydney, we have effectively extended the reach of our base to all of Asia and the Pacific."

The agreement has seen Alterian purchase a robust dedicated server IT environment including three web servers, two SQL servers, two mail servers, one infrastructure server and SAN space from Macquarie Hosting, in addition to daily backups and internet bandwidth.

Aidan Tudehope, Managing Director of Macquarie Hosting said, "We understand the business challenges such as getting access to the right skills, security, service delivery, maintaining flexibility and reducing costs to support mission critical hosting. Alterian's partnership with Macquarie Telecom has enabled the company to enter Australia with its wide product set, with virtually instant access to a locally managed infrastructure. The agreement means Alterian can utilise our highly accredited managed hosting services for mission critical support to underpin the company's rapid growth and success in the region."

The Sydney-based Alterian Data Center was built in a record time of eight weeks, from idea to operations, the fastest of Alterian's four data centers with regards to time which allowed speedy time-to-market.

Alterian's three other active data centers operate in Vancouver, Canada; Rochester, New York; and Bristol, UK. The company is also in the process of building a new data center in Los Angeles."

[rivaldo] 19/7/2010 10:02

ALN is being noticed globally:



"Alterian Cited as a 'Strong Performer' by Independent Research Firm.Jul 14, 2010

London, UK – 14 July 2010 – Alterian (LSE: ALN), the leader in customer engagement technology and solutions, was among the select companies that Forrester invited to participate in its independent report: "The Forrester Wave™: Listening Platforms, Q3 2010 ," Forrester Research, Inc., (July 2010). From a plethora of vendors – ranging from startups to software heavyweights – Forrester included only 9 firms in its review. In this evaluation, Alterian was cited as a 'strong performer' based on its SM2 solution.

Forrester found that "during the past year, listening platforms have continued their evolution beyond basic brand monitoring tools into integral technologies that inform a variety of marketing and business functions like campaign measurement, market research, customer support and sales enablement."

This trend is also discussed in Alterian's Your Brand: At Risk or Ready for Growth? report , which looks at the change in the way consumers listen to and engage with brands. The report shows that technology is changing the way customers and businesses interact with each other and urges businesses to integrate new engagement technologies into their traditional marketing strategies. David Eldridge, CEO Alterian notes, "To communicate with a specific individual, should be the strategic and tactical goal of all brands and organisations. The question is how quickly can brands evolve their marketing strategies? Businesses who integrate their platforms with data collection, management and analysis technologies, are able to build new forms of more personal, individualised engagement."

Forrester conducted an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the top listening platform vendors, including Alterian, based on three high level categories: Current Offering, Strategy and Market Presence. Alterian's social media monitoring and analysis solution, SM2, was noted as having one of the more popular listening platform dashboards as well as being a competitive product through many of the evaluation criteria. Eldridge commented on the announcement, "Alterian's strength is integrating social media data and technology into marketing strategies to ensure our customers remain globally competitive."

"We are extremely pleased to be acknowledged by Forrester," continued Eldridge. "This reflects our success in helping businesses to truly realise the potential of engaging with their customers. Our product strategy will continue to evolve to enable marketers to meet the changing demands of their customers." "

[rivaldo] 14/7/2010 19:31

Nice review of ALN in Techinvest last week:

"Alterian 155p
(ALN; Tech Software & Services)

The year ended March 31 2010 was a busy one for Alterian and saw revenue increase 14% to £38m and operating profit rise 28% to £7.7m. The Company released a number of new products, made headway with its SaaS strategy and moved further into the social media space with the £2.6m acquisition of
Techrigy last July.

Profit before tax jumped 84% to £6.7m and diluted earnings per share were 12.3p (2009: 11.2p), after a tax credit. Cash generated from operations was a healthy £6.5m, pushing net cash to £11.2m (2009: £8.6m).

The Company added 300 new end customers over the year and, in North America, won new business with a global strategy consultancy, a payment service
provider and several large software, media and entertainment companies, as well as publishers and telecom operators.

In the UK, Europe and Asia Pacific markets, Alterian signed new contracts with
publishers, software providers, pharma companies, retailers, local government bodies and a large credit card provider.

Alterian says consumers are changing the way they interact with corporations. They are less responsive to traditional broadcast media and expect messages to be tailored to specific needs. The rise of social media is an important
element of this trend.

Around £5.5m was spent on R&D during the year (2009: £4.2m) and a new SaaS
product, WebJourney, was released during March. This product offers detailed feedback on activity, when a consumer accesses an organisations website. The information can be used to modify web content in real time and tailor other marketing messages, making them more relevant to the consumer.

Marketers are responding to rapid changes in the way organisations communicate with consumers. Alterian is leading the development of technology and services that exploit this trend. Buy."

[yump] 05/7/2010 17:47

Funny looking chart, I really will need the crystal ball unless you can count it as a 9 month pennant of some sort.