TechWise Research

New Report about Preventing Downtime with VAX and Alpha Servers

Chip Levinson — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:48:00 GMT

TechWise Research just released a report entitled: VAX and Alpha in 2010: Real Challenges, Solid Solutions. This paper provides a detailed description of new proactive maintenance options for HP VAX and Alpha systems. TechWise describes small investments companies can take to substantially reduce the risk of downtime and extend the useful life of these systems.

DataSprings Wins First SatisWise Award

Chip Levinson — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:48:00 GMT

DataSprings, a leading developer of software modules for DotNetNuke, is the winner of the first ever SatisWise Award. This award recognizes companies that demonstrate a commitment to putting the customer first. Companies that win this award not only understand this principle, they live it every day in their attitude and interactions with their customers.

Introducing SatisWise - an Award to Recognize Customer-Centric Companies

Chip Levinson — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 07:10:00 GMT

Many companies do not follow the common sense principle of "putting the customer first." In an effort to change this, TechWise is introducing the SatisWise award. SatisWise will recognize companies that demonstrate a commitment to being customer-centric.

New Study Investigates Server Upgrades in PLM Market

Chip Levinson — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:01:00 GMT

TechWise Research recently published a report entitled: Total Cost of Upgrade Study for the Product Lifecycle Management Application Market: Sun SPARC Servers to HP ProLiant Servers. Many companies that run PLM applications do so on multiple Sun SPARC systems. This report includes detailed analyses of the costs and benefits associated with upgrading these Sun SPARC environments to HP ProLiant servers. The three scenarios analyzed all paid for themselves in less than one year.

TechWise Research Launches New Website

Chip Levinson — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:01:00 GMT

TechWise Research has launched a new Web site, guaranteed to garner the interest of its current and perspective clients. In addition to the sites' wealth of information, It offers free membership to Team TechWise where members gain access to valuable information and market research tools, white papers, monthly polls, market research calculators and more. "We are delighted to launch our new, improved Web site which will offer our clients with added features, informative content and greater usability” says Chip Levinson.

Updated study confirms TechWise Research's earlier results

Chip Levinson — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:01:00 GMT

In February of 2009, TechWise Research published the report entitled: Quantifying the Total Cost of Upgrade (TCU) for HP-UX Environments to HP-UX 11i v3 which determined whether or not v3 was delivering on HP's promises of increased performance, manageability, and reliability. This paper, bearing the same title, continues to explore this question by conducting an updated Total Cost of Upgrade (TCU) analyses. These new results confirm and reiterate TechWise Research's earlier conclusion.

New TechWise Research study: Quantifying the Total Cost of Upgrade (TCU) for HP-UX Environments to HP-UX 11i v3

Chip Levinson — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:01:00 GMT

Today, thousands of companies worldwide rely on the HP-UX operating environment running on HP 9000 and HP Integrity servers. In 2007 HP introduced HP-UX 11i v3, the latest version of HP-UX which came bundled with new features and applications designed to make HP-UX more reliable, robust and easier to deploy and manage. TechWise® Research conducted this current study to determine whether or not v3 is delivering on its promises of increased performance, manageability, and reliability. This paper explores this question by conducting Total Cost of Upgrade (TCU) analyses based on data provided by 130 respondents in 14 different countries.

TechWise Research Turns 10!

Chip Levinson — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:01:00 GMT

TechWise Research is pleased to announce and celebrate its 10th anniversary. Since its founding in 1998, TechWise Research has completed countless studies in 30 counties and 6 languages. "Helping our clients to target and delight their customers has been our number one objective" says Chip Levinson, founder and president. "Our industry experience enables us to deliver actionable market research while offering unsurpassed consulting and project management services." TechWise Research is headquartered in San Diego with personnel in Michigan, New Hampshire and Maryland.

TechWise Research Scores a Goal for Kids!

Chip Levinson — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:01:00 GMT

TechWise Research is pleased to announce its third year of supporting local youth soccer. This year’s sponsored team is called the “Dark Knights” of Del Mar Carmel Valley Sharks soccer league. TechWise sponsored the “Maroon Maniacs” in 2006 and the “White Tigers.” in 2005. “Soccer is an excellent sport and I have had the pleasure of observing a number of games each season" says Chip Levinson. "I am thrilled with the positive experience shared by all of these children and their families.”

TechWise Research Extends Global Reach

Chip Levinson — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:01:00 GMT

With the recent completion of a successful study in Japan, TechWise Research has reached a new global milestone. To date, TechWise has conducted surveys in over 30 countries on 5 continents and in 6 different languages. To save time and money, many of these international clients have utilized TechWise Research's multilingual tool that provides clients the ability to translate the surveys themselves.

TechWise Research Announces New Ad Testing Service

Chip Levinson — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:01:00 GMT

Significant expenditures of time and money goes into the development, placement and testing of ads and bad decisions can certainly multiply these costs. "We were surprised to learn the amount of heartache our clients were experiencing to test their ad concepts," says Chip Levinson. So, in response, TechWise Research, in conjunction with a professional who formerly worked in Wirthlin’s advertising research group, designed AdWise, a technique to test ads in a time and cost-effective manner. TechWise Research's AdWise testing service provides independent quantitative and qualitative feedback on ad concepts that helps marketing professionals maximize the return on their advertising. TechWise Research recently secured a trademark from the United States Patent and Trademark Organization for its AdWise ad testing service. "Needless to say, our clients are very grateful for this new offering," says Chip.

TechWise Research Saves International Clients Time and Money

Chip Levinson — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:01:00 GMT

As many of TechWise Research studies are international in scope, it is essential to offer them in various languages to boost response rates and improve the quality of the data. To save clients both time and money, TechWise Research has developed a multilingual tool that offers clients the ability to translate the surveys themselves. “Many of our clients like to have editorial review over the translated surveys before we go to field,” explains Chip Levinson. “Surveys with technical jargon sometimes need to go through several rounds of edits to get everything ‘just right.’ This tool saves our clients time and money and allows them to be better informed and more involved. For our clients who prefer to outsource the entire process, we are pleased to offer them translation services.”

TechWise Research discovers key benefits to server consolidation

Chip Levinson — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:01:00 GMT

Over the past few years many companies have turned to server consolidation to help control server crawl (i.e., rapidly growing number of servers in their organization) and to meet their growing IT processing needs. HP made a strategic decision to consolidate its high performance server product line by replacing servers based on PA-RISC and Alpha® chips with HP Integrity® servers (which are based on Intel’s® Itanium® processor). In this paper The Benefits of Using HP Integrity Servers to Consolidate HP 9000 Servers, TechWise® Research provides a detailed Total Cost of UpgradeTM analysis for consolidating multiple HP 9000 servers running HP-UX into fewer HP Integrity servers.The study strongly concludes that there are several key benefits to server consolidation beyond the resulting obvious simplification of IT assets.

TechWise Research publishes new study: Quantifying the Total Cost of Upgrading HP-UX Environments from HP 9000 servers to HP Integrity servers

Chip Levinson — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:01:00 GMT

Thousands of companies worldwide rely on HP 9000 servers and the HP-UX® operating system as key components of their IT infrastructure. HP made a strategic decision to consolidate its high performance server product line by replacing servers based on PA-RISC and Alpha® chips with servers based on Intel’s® Itanium® processor. This new paper from TechWise® Research provides a detailed Total Cost of UpgradeTM analysis for upgrading HP-UX environments from HP 9000 systems to HP Integrity systems. It is based on data collected from actual customers ( 232 IT managers in the U.S. and in Europe) who have made this upgrade and quantifies the costs and benefits from the upgrade and provides detailed cash flow analyses for four different upgrade scenarios.

TechWise Research Hires New National Account Manager

Chip Levinson — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:01:00 GMT

TechWise Research is pleased to announce that Jim Rainville has joined its team as National Account Manager, responsible for business development and client relations. Jim has an extensive background with 37 years of experience in marketing, sales programs and sales management working at Hewlett Packard. His most recent position there was OpenVMS Marketing Manager, responsible for worldwide marketing activities. “I am thrilled to have Jim join our team,” says Chip Levinson."His vast experience in the computer industry will be a huge benefit to our high-technology clients.”

TechWise Research revisits Total Cost of Ownership for server clusters

Chip Levinson — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:01:00 GMT

The overall concept of Total Cost of Ownership for server clusters has been an important issue within the IT community for many years. Since TechWise Research last studied clusters in 2004, HP, IBM and Sun have all introduced new server hardware as well as updated operating system and cluster software. TechWise Research conducted this new study Quantifying the Total Cost of Ownership for Entry-Level and Mid-Range Server Clusters to provide more current information on this important topic. This study focuses on the entry-level and mid-range server clusters: HP OpenVMS Integrity, IBM AIX System p5, and Sun Solaris Sun-Fire clusters. This study shows that the differences in TCO between these three cluster brands can be quite significant and can easily amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars over three years.

New study by TechWise Research Quantifies the Total Cost of Upgrading AlphaServer OpenVMS Systems to HP Integrity

Chip Levinson — Fri, 18 May 2007 00:01:00 GMT

For over a decade companies in a wide variety of industries have deployed OpenVMS AlphaServer systems for their business-critical applications. HP will shortly stop selling AlphaServers, however, in favor of its Integrity server product line. This new TechWise Research paper Quantifying the Total Cost of Upgrading HP OpenVMS AlphaServer systems to OpenVMS on HP Integrity servers quantifies the costs and benefits from the upgrade and provides detailed cash flow analyses for four upgrade and two consolidation scenarios. TechWise Research discovered that the age-old adage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" may not necessarily apply in these cases.

TechWise Research Helps Identify Best Practices in Education

Chip Levinson — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 01:01:00 GMT

TechWise Research, a proud supporter of The Business Roundtable for Education, is pleased to announce the completion of a study entitled 2003-04 Update on Best Practices in San Diego Education. In 1999, the Roundtable, an advocate for educational excellence, initially conducted a broad study among San Diego public schools that identified 79 best practices. In early 2005, the Roundtable turned to TechWise to conduct a follow-up study with the goal of providing an update on the current status and effectiveness of all 79 programs. One of the study’s objectives was to identify which programs could be replicated in many schools. In its report, TechWise identified the number of active programs and the number of students that have been positively affected by these programs. "This was one of the most exciting findings from the study" says Chip Levinson. “We identified at least 45 teachers in the San Diego area that are implementing a Best Practices program. Furthermore, 332 educators nationwide contacted a Best Practices teacher for information about their programs, indicating that schools across the country will benefit from these programs. I highly recommend that educators read the Roundtable’s booklets that describe these programs in detail.”

For more information: http://www.educationroundtable.org/

TechWise Research Announces New Web Survey Tool, SurveyWise®

Chip Levinson — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 00:01:00 GMT

Recognizing that commercially available software packages lack the features and functionality needed to support complex survey designs while ensuring high data quality and maximizing response rates, TechWise Research embarked on a 1-year development project to create its own web survey software. The result is SurveyWise®, a robust web survey software package designed to develop and host online surveys. SurveyWise is continually being enhanced with new features and functionality to best meet clients' needs and has been used to conduct tens of thousands of web surveys just over this past year.

Some of key benefits of SurveyWise include:

Security - unique pass codes and links for respondents
Quota and sample management
Answer validation and verification
Complex skip patterns and branching
Question rotation and randomization
Combination recruits via web and telephone
Multimedia support

TechWise Research Wins US Trademarks

Chip Levinson — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 00:01:00 GMT

TechWise Research has been granted several trademarks by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for "TechWise" (July 2004), "TechWise Research" (September 2004) and SurveyWise, a Web survey tool (September 2004).

TechWise Research Investigates Cluster Security

Chip Levinson — Tue, 15 Jun 2004 00:01:00 GMT

For many companies, the cost per hour of downtime is measured in the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. TechWise Research conducted this eye-opening study Are Some RISC-Based Clusters More Secure Than Others? to probe specifically into the area of cluster security. The purpose was to better understand the differences between HP, IBM and Sun cluster security costs. Extensive executive telephone interviews were conducted and availability data were examined in detail, specifically in the area of crashes caused by security-related incidents. In addition, a detailed analysis of the CERT® Coordination Center’s database that tracks security vulnerabilities and threats was performed. Lastly, TechWise Research studied the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database to provide standardized names and descriptions for information security vulnerabilities and exposures.

TechWise Research Examines Cluster Management Costs

Chip Levinson — Sat, 15 May 2004 00:01:00 GMT

In this follow-up study entitled Are Some RISC-Based Clusters Easier to Manage Than Others?, TechWise Research probed into the area of cluster management cost to better understand the differences between HP and IBM and the possible reasons why HP has an advantage over IBM in this area. A key finding from this study is the overall importance of cluster management costs. Regardless of brand, management costs far exceed the initial purchase price of entry-level clusters over a three-year period. Given the continuing battle IT professionals face to manage limited resources, cluster brands that have lower management hours will not only free up limited IT resources, but also impact the bottom line.

TechWise Research TCO Study Gets Favorable Review

Chip Levinson — Sun, 22 Feb 2004 01:01:00 GMT

In their news article, TCO study has lessons for Unix and Linux, THE INQUIRER, an online source for IT news, reviews and information, has based their article on the findings of TechWise Research study: Total Cost of Ownership for Entry-Level and Mid-Range Clusters. "The new report is quite detailed in its discussion of the TCO of clusters of different processing powers..." states John McLean of the Inquirer.

Read the article: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1042520/tco-study-has-lessons-for-unix-and-linux.

TechWise Research Pioneers New Total Cost of Ownership Analysis

Chip Levinson — Sun, 15 Feb 2004 01:01:00 GMT

Responding to excessive Internet traffic bottlenecks and downtime caused by high profile viruses and worms, TechWise Research expanded its proprietary Reliability-Adjusted TCO™ technique to incorporate downtime caused by these culprits. This leading-edge paper entitled Total Cost of Ownership for Entry-Level and Mid-Range Clusters is the first that analyzes three leading RISC-based clusters on this important issue, focusing on HP OpenVMS/ AlphaServer, IBM AIX/pSeries, and Sun Solaris/Sun Fire clusters. TechWise Research interviewed 94 IT professionals to collect data on the operational costs associated with installing, managing, and maintaining their clusters. Information was also collected on the number of hours and associated costs for various downtime events each company experienced over a twelve-month period. All of these operational data were then combined with current system and service pricing (from IDEAS International) to calculate the Reliability-Adjusted TCO™ - an analytical approach that factors downtime costs/rates into the TCO analysis.

TechWise Research Receives Praise in IT News Article

Chip Levinson — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 01:01:00 GMT

TechWise Research has been featured in the article OpenVMS clusters give Windows, Unix thorough thrashing published in THE INQUIRER, an online source for IT news, reviews and information. Commending a recent TechWise Research TCO study, the Inquirer stated "The TechWise report was based on 93 interviews and looks at the costs of ownership over a five year period for machines from Compaq (as it was then), Hewlett-Packard, Sun and IBM, with approximately equal numbers of systems from each manufacturer. In our experience, the report from TechWise is unusual in that it takes into account the actual costs of downtime..."

Read the article: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1022257/openvms-clusters-give-windows-unix-thorough-thrashing.