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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Fast Growing Key Information Gets Award, Eyes New Market

Key Information Services has been recognized as one of the fastest growing revenue generators among IBM Premier Business Partners. The privately held Key Information started out with five employees, a number that has grown to 40 in four offices in California and Arizona. Last year’s revenues hit $62.5 million, a 37 percent increase from 2004. That growth helped earn the company a Fast Track 2005 Revenue Growth Challenge Award from IBM. “This is only given to premier partners with a certain client satisfaction level and a certain level of technical capabilities,” said Key Information President Lief Morin, one of the founders of the information technology integration company. With the boost in revenues comes actual physical growth. Recently relocated into 15,000-square feet at the Warner Center Towers, Key Information has been a success because it focuses on the three core businesses of servers, storage solutions and high availability, Morin said. The company holds no patents, develops no intellectual property of its own but uses existing equipment, much of it from IBM, to package systems together for its clients. “There are a thousand technologies out there we could sell,” Morin said. “If we stay focused on the three businesses and build and expand in the marketplace, we form a competitive edge when talking with clients and customers.” Morin described the company’s role as one of an enabler for its clients to do well, Morin said. “If we do our job right the client will be more successful in their business because their solutions are more robust,” Morin said. Now Morin and company are eyeing a move into the managed services arena, wherein a company accesses remote servers for use and storage rather than having them internally. “All you need is an Internet connection,” Morin said. “You have no servers. You have no IT people.” Managed services are an emerging trend in the tech industry and a shift in the market that Key Information Services is adapting to, Morin said. While the business model for managed services was developed about five years ago, only in recent years with the emergence of DSL and cable modems providing greater bandwidth for high speed connections has it become more efficient to do, Morin said. Key Information is still working out a marketing plan to enter into this new market but Morin envisions the company being able to serve the dual markets of companies that want to continue using their own servers and that of the managed services providers. Launch of VortalSearch Put portal and vertical together and what do you come up with? For a Woodland Hills company the answer is a new way for website publishers to provide a search function at their sites as well as bring in revenue. VortalSearch.com launched this month for use by small publishers of websites and blogs. There will also be a version available for MySpace.com users, said Daniel Kay, vice president for search services. “Vortal is a popular term,” Kay said. “It’s something that we’ve been working on for seven to eight years. People in the industry do know the term.” A portal is a type of content management system website, while vertical is a type of search done within a single topic. Use of VortalSearch results in a brandable site using the same color scheme, logos and lettering as the host site so that the end user does not know the difference, Kay said. “When an end user does a search, there is more retention at the site,” he added. A unique function of the service is the opportunity for the end users to vote on ranking the search results so that the results are the most specific for the site, Kay said. Revenues are generated for the website or blog publisher through use of the cost-per-click model in which SearchVortal pays the publisher to have the search function at the site, Kay added. Real-time Reporting When an alleged attempted kidnapping late last year near Ventura and Van Nuys boulevards had little news coverage, J. Kenneth Ezra came up with an idea to allow residents to go online to report what was going on in their neighborhoods. Eyesawit.com was launched in early April, a self-financed venture of the former commercial producer living in Sherman Oaks. “This is taking the first step in journalism, the eyewitness reporting, and bringing that into a database, Ezra said of the website that takes in reports from all 50 states. Marketing the site is done primarily by word of mouth. Some reports at the site are coming from other states a fire in Chicago, suspicious activity in Michigan. For California, about 95 percent of the reports are coming from the Los Angeles area and involve celebrities out grocery shopping, having coffee or eating dinner. “It has to do with the region,” Ezra said of the type of reports that come to the site. “We have a lot more celebrities out here and people are interested in that type of thing.” While most reports are placed in real time at the site, celebrity sightings are delayed so as not to put anyone in jeopardy, Ezra said. How the site can turn a profit is still up in the air, Ezra said, so right now he is concentrating on doing the site right and seeing how it develops over the next six to eight months. “I believe in it,” Ezra said. “I see the power in it but right now it is a philanthropical thing.” E to the Third Power Trade shows probably don’t come as big and loud and colorful as the Electronic Entertainment Expo that wrapped up May 12 after three days at the Los Angeles Convention Center. As a first time attendee, there was a lot to take in with the major game and console makers setting up elaborate exhibits to promote their latest product. Not being a gamer, my experience being limited to an Atari console 20 years ago when my hand-eye coordination was much quicker, I perhaps did not enjoy seeing all the new games as much as the other people there. After seeing the 2-minute preview for THQ’s “Supreme Commander” game, I commented to the public relations women accompanying me around the Calabasas company’s exhibit that I’m sure it had said a lot more about what the game was about than I picked up. After some three hours at the show, most of it spent in the South Hall where the Valley companies had their exhibits, I was ready to take my leave of my first E3. The crowd had grown larger since I had first arrived, the presentations more elaborate at the exhibits, one hosting a band; another stage show with performers dressed like characters from whatever video game the company was promoting. The audio from the games themselves was a mixture of thumping bass notes and explosions. Lots of explosions. Come next May, I will know what to expect at E3. And maybe my hand-eye coordination will have improved.

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