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About IRG |
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Internet Research Group provides
marketing and strategy research reports and consulting services,
specializing in areas related to Internet infrastructure. Internet offerings
combine the formidable and unique experience and perspective of the two
principals:
John Katsaros and
Peter Christy.
John and Peter
have both been active participants in the computer and communications
business for over 30 years. Both were educated as engineers. John has spent
his career in high-tech sales and marketing; Peter in product development
and strategy. Their collaboration began in 1997.
In 1993 John
formed what became the Internet Research Group, a consulting practice
focused on assisting Internet ventures. Internet Research Group developed
innovative methodologies, capable of giving actionable marketing and
strategy advice within 6-8 week projects.
At the core of
Internet Research Group’s success and our continuing work, is the concept
and practice of Expert Interviews. Put simply, when trying to investigate
new opportunities in a high-reward, rapidly moving environment, nothing is
better than talking to the best experts you can find – someone doing
something like it now. There is a lot of craft in determining who to talk
to, what to ask them, and how to ask it. But the results are clear. You
learn a lot more from 50 careful interviews than from a poll of 10,000 who
don’t have experience with what you’re interested in.
In 1997 Peter
joined with John to extend research that Internet Research Group had done
earlier in Internet caching and they collectively produced the first
comprehensive, multi-client study of the caching market. The report utilized
the Internet Research Group Expert Interview techniques; John’s marketing
insight and Peter’s background in computer systems and networking. The
result was a clear and comprehensive view of this emerging market, with an
early forecast of the significant revenue potential.
In 1998, John
and Peter followed their early work with a series of research studies
covering infrastructure including Traffic Management, Content Distribution,
WAN networking and, most recently Security.
Internet
Research Group builds on what the original Internet Research Group had done
(The original Internet Research Group was sold to Jupiter Research in early
2000. John and Peter subsequently started NetsEdge Research Group which, in
2005, was renamed the Internet Research Group). Our assets include the
Internet Research Group methodologies and background in key Internet
infrastructure areas, as well as the extensive, deep and broad experience of
Peter and John. IRG will continue to center its efforts in the general area
of Internet security – how do organizations build effective information
security systems. Additionally, IRG undertakes strategic business and
marketing consulting projects. In both cases, IRG will utilize Expert
Interviews research methodologies, and build on their respected position and
contacts in this important industry segments. |
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The Principals |
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John Katsaros
is a principal at Silicon
Valley-based Internet Research Group (IRG), a leading market research and
consulting company focused exclusively on helping innovative companies gain
market share. In March 2000, the original company named IRG, which Katsaros
had founded, was acquired by Jupiter Communications. IRG provided strategic
consulting for dozens of high tech companies, including IBM, Lotus, Cisco,
Oracle, Sun, and Hewlett Packard, as well as some of the Valley’s brightest
venture-backed start-ups. Subsequent to working with Jupiter, Katsaros,
along with Peter Christy, started a successor research company, NetsEdge
Research Group which they later renamed Internet Research Group after the
original IRG partners obtained the rights to use their former brand name.
Katsaros has more than thirty years’ experience in senior-level sales,
marketing, product development, and business planning positions in a variety
of environments ranging from Fortune 500 companies to startups. He is also
the author of Selling High Tech (1994), and was a contributing author to
Tricks of the Internet Gurus (1993). He is a frequent speaker at conferences
and has written many reports on electronic commerce and infrastructure.
Industry and national media call Katsaros for commentary about
innovation-related events. He has also appeared as an industry expert on
CNBC and CNN.
Personal Stuff:
My wife’s Paris passion –
www.ourparishome.com
My son Christopher
Katsaros’ blog about his semester in Senegal -
www.chrisinsenegal.blogspot.com
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Peter Christy
is a principal at Internet Research Group. He has been involved with the
computer and communications industries since the late ‘60’s. Educated as an
undergraduate at Harvard, and graduate school at Berkeley, Peter started as
a system programmer building operating systems at CSC. Next was an
exploration of medical information systems at UCSF, and then a decade at DEC
in the heyday period of 1975-1985, starting at Technical Staff to the VP of
Software Engineering, and ending in the middle of VLSI systems, including
work with DECNet from the very beginning. Peter was briefly at HP, serving
as manager of network architecture, ran engineering for IBM/Rolm PhoneMail
operations, and then was founder and VP of Software Engineering for MasPar
Computers, building mid-range, highly parallel computers in the late 1980’s.
That was followed by business development for Sun’s object oriented Spring
operating system, and then running much of Apple’s developer tools efforts,
including program responsibilities for Apple’s involvement with IBM and
Novell on OpenDoc. Peter learned the analysis business from Michael Slater,
running the small Ziff-Davis operation that Michael had started around
microprocessors, publishing the Microprocessor Report and convening the
Microprocessor Forum All this experience is, remarkably, actually brought to
bear in the current Internet Research Group activities.
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