A Bigger Trophy Cabinet

  by Kelly Wenzel | 27 Jan 2009 | Permalink |

This is a big week for the Tideway US HQ. We’re moving offices in Manhattan. Out of midtown and down to that bustling sector between Union Square and NYU. I’m excited about the prospect of the new neighborhood. We’ve already sampled the local pub and I’m anticipating my first taste of the curry at Café Spice. And since we’re setting up shop right next to LinkedIn, I’m hoping the neighbors will be cool, too. :-) Another perk of the new digs: a larger trophy case, which is a good thing, because we have yet another award to add to the pile; last week Tideway earned a place on the Red Herring Global 100.

It’s the latest in a long run of industry recognition for Tideway in 2008 including Technology Supplier of the Year, Top 10 Enterprise Management Tools, Green IT Project of the Year and the second year Tideway was named Britain’s fastest-growing software company in the Sunday Times. My all-time favorite, of course, is our selection as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. Partly because of its exclusivity (Tideway was one of only 15 technology companies in the world to earn the designation of Technology Pioneer), and partly because I’m fascinated by the reality of our CEO rubbing shoulders with Kofi Annan, Vladimir Putin, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair in Davos this week. And partly, because it makes the marketer in me all warm and fuzzy when BusinessWeek recognizes my company as one of the most promising start-ups in the world.

I might debate the definition of “start-up”, but that would be a bit tangential. The real point is that honors like this don’t happen by accident. Judges are a notoriously picky lot (except maybe in Blades of Glory). Interesting also, that the RH Global 100 is yet another award we share in common with previous winner Google (also a former WEF Tech Pioneer). Naturally, I like the Google comparison: it’s aspirational in terms of growth and reach, but very apt considering what we do (they index web pages; we index data centers).

So why all the awards and recognition? I think it boils down to the fact that Tideway is:

o Solving a pressing market need (What do I have in my data center? How does it support my business?)
o Generating new revenue streams (with a turnkey packaged service that guarantees results in less than 30 days)
o Delivering unique product & service offerings (free Community Edition, Infrastructure Baseline)
o Reducing IT’s carbon footprint (removing wasteful or power-hungry servers, mapping the carbon footprint of business applications)
o Growing our partner and user community (with more referenceable production customers than the competition!)
o Building on an open, extensible platform (like Google, it’s a single platform with high utility and multiple applications)

All of which explains why it’s more than just our trophy case we’re expanding – it’s our client roster, too. In the toughest economic climate in recent memory, Tideway added over 25 new clients in 2008. Now that’s an achievement that merits a shout-out.