2013: A Year in ITAM Review

ITAM News & Analysis

2013: A Year in ITAM Review

As 2013 begins to draw to a close, I thought it would be nice to finish off the year with a final article that’s an overview of what has happened at the ITAM Review over the last 12 months.  That’s right, this will be our last post for 2013 because the entire team is heading off to fill their faces with mince pies and sherry. But don’t worry we’ll be back in 2014 with slightly bigger waistlines and lots of exciting plans for 2014 (insight into which you can find at the end of this article).

Ironically I like neither mince pies nor sherry.

Visits and Growth

• We received a whopping 400,000 page views this year, an increase of 10% from 2012. A huge thank you to the circa 200,000 of you for coming to read our content.
• Newsletter subscribers increased by 1,058 to 4,805
• Our LinkedIn Group and Twitter followers both expanded by around 25% to 2,258 and 1,336 respectively.

One thing that I think it’s worth pointing out here as well is that the bulk of our readers are not actually situated in the UK (which is what a lot of people presume given that this is where we are based). In 2013, 16% of our readers were from the UK, but an impressive 33% were actually from the USA. Perhaps we should open a US office?! A large proportion of visitors also came from India, Germany, Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, France and Sweden, as well as plenty of other countries too.

Owing to us attracting more and more visitors year-on-year from outside of the UK and America, we are increasingly being asked to produce region-specific content. We are therefore looking for practitioners, consultants or analysts based in Asia, South America, Africa, and Europe who would be interested in writing about their experiences of ITAM in other countries. If you are interested please get in touch.

What was popular?

Our licensing quick guides continue to be the most visited pieces of content on our site, with the Oracle licensing guide being the most popular of all (it was the most-read piece of content of 2013). SAP took second place.

From a review perspective, (coming in as the third most-read piece of 2013) interest remained in the Inventory Discovery Tools Review, with the product-specific review on ServiceNow gaining most hits.

Interestingly, these top three articles were not actually published in 2013! In terms of what was popular from this year the two most popular articles were: Gartner Marketscope for the IT Asset Management Repository 2013 (by Martin Thompson) and Microsoft Visio KMS Keys likes to install most expensive version by default (by Filipa Preston).

Is there a specific topic that you would like us to write about? Are there are practical pieces that you would like to see us cover to help you in your day-to-day job? Please let us know.

Content Contributors

In 2013, we were pleased to welcome 5 new, regular content contributors to the ITAM Review.  These are people who now write for us on a regular basis (roughly once a month), so you can expect to see a lot more great content from them in 2014. They are:

• David Foxen
• Kylie Fowler
• Peter Bjorkman
• Rory Canavan

We also published content for the first time from the following companies: Absolute Software; AssetGurus; Dell Software Group; eTelligent Solutions; E-ISG Asset Intelligence; Highlights for Children Inc; Rimo3; Seagate Technology LLC; and Virgin Media.

A great big thank-you to all of our regular and ad hoc contributors for helping supply with us with such fantastic content.

If you’re reading this and think you might be interested in contributing content (we welcome content from all, including) please get in touch.

Top Searches

Given that we had over 400,000 pages view this year, I thought that many of you might be interested to see what it was that people were searching for on our site.  The top 20 searches of the year were as follows:

1. HP DDMI
2. IT Asset Management
3. Snow Software
4. SAP License Types
5. BDNA
6. Oracle Licensing
7. Open Source ITAM Software
8. Altiris
9. Nexthink
10. IT Asset Management Process
11. Microsoft Audit
12. Oracle Licensing
13. SCCM Asset Management
14. ITAM Certification
15. SAM Tool Feature List
16. Frontrange Discovery
17. Autodesk Audit
18. ITAM Software
19. Microsoft SAM Review
20. Software Asset Manager Job Descripton

Are there any search terms that you are surprised to see on there?  Or anything that you would have expected to see that isn’t?

Events

In 2013 we branched out and kicked off Media Partnerships at the Gartner IT Financial, Procurement and Asset Management summits (in London and Orlando) and IAITAM conference (in St Petersburg, Florida).  Our aim was not only to let the world know about The ITAM Review, but to spend time with delegates to find out what things they are struggling with and how we might be able to help them.

Next year you can expect to see us again at the IAITAM Spring Conference in Las Vegas, and we hope to announce some other new, exciting partnerships for 2015 in the New Year!

Launches

The Campaign for Clear Licensing kicked off in May 2013 with the first roundtable event in September – stay tuned for more events and resources in 2014. To get involved please get in touch.

In August, our new regular contributor, Rory Canavan kicked off his ‘Process of the Month’ article series with, what turned out to be, amazing success! Published so far you can read:

• Software Re-harvesting Process
• Software Change Management Process
• Corporate Governance Process
• Maintain a Software Catalogue Process

His first process alone received 151 ‘shares’ on LinkedIn, with one Process of the Month article peaking at 238 ‘shares’.  Every month also saw each new Process article appear in the top 5 most-read articles of the month!

There are plenty more scheduled for 2014, but if there is a specific process that you’d like Rory to write about then please get in touch.

Additions to the team

As of 1^st January 2013 the ITAM Review was still simply just the man you all know and love Martin Thompson (he tried desperately to get me to remove what I just said there… modest and all that jazz).

However, ITAM Review finished 2013 with an additional 3 employees:

• In January 2013 Glenn Thompson (you’d be right to suspect that they might be related) joined full-time as the company’s Commercial Director. For some reason there was no official announcement (we’ll blame Martin) so for some of you this might be the first you’ve heard of it! Without Glenn we’d struggle to continue to offer all of our content to readers free of charge, so despite the fact that he’s a Chelsea fan, you’ve got to like him.
• In July, for some reason Martin decided it would be a good move to hire some strange blonde lady who liked penguins (that would be me) as the Marketing and Community Manager.
• Finally, in October Rebecca Beach joined as a Research Analyst. Famous for being a “gobby midget”, Rebecca predominantly focuses on the ITSM side of things (aka at The ITSM Review), but you ITAMers will get to know her much better in 2015. Rebecca also spends time (in conjunction with me) making fun of Martin and Glenn on a regular basis (it’s not our fault they make it so easy).

So then there was 4.

We’re hiring a full time ITAM Analyst in early 2014.

The ideal candidate:

• Loves all things ITAM
• Is curious about ITAM tools and technology
• Is slightly obsessive about licensing
• Enjoys helping others navigate the market

If you’re interested in any upcoming job opportunities at the ITAM Review (or ITSM Review), then please let us know. 

What’s planned for 2014?

Next year we are hoping to broaden our coverage of the ITAM and SAM space even further by securing new content contributors; participating in more industry events; launching new products (such as video product reviews, webinars, and case studies).

We’re also looking very seriously at the potential of hosting our very own SAM Tooling event; as well as the possibility of running regular ‘social meet ups’ like we recently did with the Christmas get-together.

Already confirmed for 2014 is our Group Tests schedule:

• Microsoft License Management (January)
• Inventory and Discovery (March)
• SAP License Management (May)
• Managing Cloud Assets (July)
• IBM License Management (September)

In addition to the above we also have some planned changes in the works for our website. Nothing too major (it will still look like the ITAM Review that you know and love), just some cosmetic updates to make it easier on the eye and increase your ability to easily find what you are looking for.

Watch this space and we’ll keep you updated of our plans throughout 2014!

Oh and if you’re interested in the 2013 review and plans for 2014 from the ITSM Review, you can read them here.

Is there anything you would like to see us doing in 2014 that we’re not doing currently? Are there any changes that you would like to suggest to the website? Would you be interested in a tooling event or social get-togethers? Are you a Vendor who is interested in our Group Tests? We welcome your feedback, so please get in touch. 

And so…

2013 is drawing to a close. Our success and growth throughout the year has made everybody here happy bunnies; but most importantly we hope that our community this year has made YOU a bunch of happy bunnies. The whole purpose of the ITAM Review is to help ITAM and SAM practitioners, and everything we do has that end goal in mind.  Even if we only gain an additional 5 readers in 2014, so long as our content aids those 5 people and makes their work lives easier then these bunnies will continue to have smiles on their faces.

So with that image of turning the entire ITAM industry into smiley rabbits, I bid you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  Thanks for reading throughout 2013; without you… the ITAM Review doesn’t exist.

Image Credit

Can’t find what you’re looking for?