Chicago-based technology consultant DiamondCluster International has formed The Center for Market Leadership, a think tank and research center aimed at flushing out the secrets of success.
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The center, to be based in Boston, will bring together business leaders and academics to research and promote the strategies technology market leaders use to maintain top-dog status in an increasingly competitive global economy.
The center’s co-director, Fred Wiersema, author of “The New Market Leaders: Who’s Winning and How in the Battle for Customers” (The Free Press), said successful businesses spend time identifying customers’ changing priorities and implementing technologies to suit their needs. Their homework pays off, he said, because, on average, market leaders increase their sales three times faster than their peers.
Wiersema will team with DiamondCluster’s vice chairman, John Sviokla, to run the center. Sviokla is a former associate professor at Harvard Business School.
Move over, Dilbert: Frustrated tech support workers have a friend in “Fred,” CDW Computer Centers’ new mascot, who quietly pokes fun at the technological dolts of the world.
Since television ads featuring the unseen tech pro started airing in February, the Vernon Hills-based computer retailer has received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails from customers requesting copies of the ads.
Others want to share stories about their heroic efforts to keep systems running, or to keep from laughing in the faces of less tech-savvy co-workers.
Encouraged by the campaign’s success, CDW is inviting information technology professionals to submit their most memorable on-the-job challenges and most ridiculous user requests. The company will choose the five best stories on Oct. 1 and will send winners to Las Vegas for the Comdex Fall 2001 trade show, the nation’s big kahuna of technology expos, scheduled for Nov. 12-16.
IT professionals can find contest details and submit their entries at www.cdw.com/fred.
Road worriers: Good news for those eager to see more drivers with both hands on the wheel: A survey conducted by Verizon Wireless found that more drivers are shifting to hands-free devices.
The company polled 2,500 drivers in May and found that 31 percent already use hands-free technology and that another 18 percent plan to buy similar devices soon.
About 5 percent of respondents said they never use their phones while driving. Of those who do talk and drive, 35 percent said they make a few calls from their cars each week, and 33 percent said they make a few calls each day. Twelve percent reported that they cruise and yack non-stop.
New stuff: Zebra Technologies Corp. unveiled its fastest print engine, the 110PAX3. The Vernon Hills company’s new 4-inch-wide device prints high-resolution graphics at a speed of up to 1 foot per second and can print labels as small as one-fourth of a square inch. Zebra manufactures and distributes printers for bar-code labels and plastic cards used for identification and security applications worldwide.
Radio play: Motorola licensed its iDEN (Integrated Digital Enhanced Network) technology last week to RadioFrame Networks Inc. of Redmond, Wash., which builds indoor wireless networks that operate on radio frequencies.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but representatives for both companies said it will help Nextel Communications’ plans to deliver wireless access to airports, high-rise buildings, campuses and other densely populated areas.
Alexander Resources estimates that the indoor wireless network industry will grow to $1.4 billion by 2002.