Ferris Research is an analyst firm specializing in email. We provided the initial archive of The Museum of eMail & Digital Communications.
We started business in 1990, when mainframe email was established, and PC-based email was in its infancy. Web-based email was as yet undreamed of. We offered an information service, including reports, teleconferences, news updates and commentaries, and call-in consulting, and one-day strategic planning sessions.
The service was highly successful, and Ferris Research became very well known in the IT world. Our work in what was then a complex and confusing field was recognized as without peer. Our main clients were:
- The IT departments of large organizations throughout the world. We helped many hundreds of them understand and implement a rapidly-changing technology, and implement the technology among their users. For an IT client list, click here
- Vendors of email-related products or services. We worked intimately with most of them, ranging from the big boys such as Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle, to three-man startups. For a vendor client list, click here
As email technology has become mainstream, the need for such a service evaporated, and we now focus on specialized consulting projects. Recent examples include:
- Helping a leading email vendor sue a government, for breach of contract
- Helping a major vendor position a new email offering against its main competitors
- Prioritizing the several key business opportunities for a software vendor
- Advising a global commercial organization on its long-term archiving strategy, and which products to evaluate
- Various investment banking advisory services, including valuing a successful unified messaging firm, and finding a buyer for a division of a leading India software development firm
Since 1990, we have published literally thousands of research documents, ranging from an 800-page study on the implementation of X.400-based email, to one-page bulletins on many topics.