In our continuing series of analyst interviews, we are delighted to welcome Roger Kay, Founder and President of Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc.
1. What are your coverage areas?
Endpoints, those things at the end of the wire, e.g., PCs, phones, GPS, MIDs, UMPCs, blades, POS machines, ATMs, and the Hoover Dam (which does meet the criteria: has IP address, single user, and some sort of human interface).
2. What are your opinions of the IT Analysis Marketplace and where do you see it going?
For now, the public needs people to interpret technology’s impact and meaning. This may not always be the case.
3. What’s your typical day like?
Starts with reading the daily traffic, sometimes writing a bit, briefings, phone calls with clients and journalists, sometimes radio or TV appearances
4. Now, c’mon, tell me an AR horror story?
Finding out that some guy who was your rival at a big analyst firm has taken a position as head of AR at your largest client.
5. How do you position your firm? What is your business model? (where are your revenues coming from, mix between users and vendors?)
Mostly the vendor side; some financial community. We profess expertise in outbound communications.
6. What is your research methodology, in 255 characters or less? (primary research, F2F or phone, secondary only, etc…)
Analysis of publically available information, correlated with proprietary information base, and primary sources.
7. Any favourite AR professional you’d like to mention? Any why?
My all time favorite AR guy was Bill Gesick at IBM, now retired. Bill was old school; elegant, courtly, thoughtful, and he promoted the interests of both IBM and the analyst.
8. Tell us about one good AR practice you’ve experienced or one good AR event you’ve attended.
AR can maximize its messaging impact by working closely with analysts in the days and hours before releasing the news. Some of it is crafting the message, and some of it is delivering it at the right time to the right people in the media.
9. What are your offerings and key deliverables?
Our model is retainer for inquiry. We do write in specific deliverables to contracts, but there is no fixed format for that. The writing Endpoint does is not sold, but given away as marketing and advertising for the firm. What’s sold is the relationship.
10. Any hobbies or favourite restaurant / food that you’d like to share?
I’ve recently taken up stone masonry, using native stone, which, around here, is glacial till. The stones are generally round, and so can be rocked out of the ground. Although they have been turned in the glacier, many have flat faces where they have been broken or just worn. These I use like cobbles to create walkways, stairs, and water run-offs, using slates and river stone to square things off and finish them up. Manual labor done mostly by looking and feeling is a good antidote to the abstraction of the analytical world. Planning is done over a period of months, and the product will likely be the longest-lasting work I ever do.
11. What is your biggest challenges for the upcoming 6 months? And for the next 30 mn?
Half-year challenge is rebuilding the business after some washout from economic distress. Half-hour challenge is getting the kids into bed, not helped by filling this survey out.
12. Is there another analyst (a peer in your firm or with another firm) whose work you rate highly?
Tim Bajarin is one of the longest-serving analysts in the industry and is as hardworking and honest as the day is long.
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