Many of you have seen the unofficial advanced coverage on Twitter yesterday, announcing that Gilbane Group has become part of Outsell Inc. Today is the day of the “official” announcement. You can also read a post from Outsell CEO, Anthea Stratigos. Here I provide a little additional information in the form of FAQs. Feel free to send me additional questions.

FAQs

Q. Why did Gilbane Group and Outsell decide to do this?
A. Gilbane Group and Outsell have been tracking each other for years, as we have served slightly different segments of the information industry; Outsell is focused on the business of information, and Gilbane Group is focused on the technology of information. Outsell co-founders Anthea Stratigos and Greg Chagaris and I often talked about how complementary our businesses were, and we finally decided it was time to do something about it. Why now? The simple answer is customer demand. Not that our customers were telling us to join together, but they were asking us for a broader set of services, that our new combined organization will be able to deliver.

Q. Why Outsell specifically?
A. We complement in other in many important ways:

Topic coverage – Outsell focuses on the business of content we focus on the technology of business content.

Customers – Outsell’s customers are about 70% information providers and 30% Enterprise information consumers and managers, Our customer base is 75-80% enterprise IT and information managers, and 20-25% content providers. Together we provide the full spectrum of business and technology. Also, Outsell’s customers are largely C-level executives, Gilbane customers are mostly VP, Director, and Managers of IT and line of business units, so we are now able to help organizations at multiple levels, and help coordinate far-reaching information strategies or technology deployments.

Products – Outsell revenue is mostly from subscription advisory services and C-level councils, and research on information usage and business model trends. Gilbane revenue is mostly from strategic consulting projects advising on technology usage, practices and trends.

Business Model – Both companies have a combination of complementary revenue streams, and utilize both deep in-house expertise, complemented by a broad base of expert affiliates.

Ethics: We have the same commitment to business ethics. Outsell’s published Ethics policy expresses the same values that our customers, partners and competitors are used to receiving from us.

Q. What does this mean to Gilbane Group personnel?
A.
All Gilbane Group personnel except for finance and HR remain in their current roles.

Q. What does this mean to Gilbane Group customers?
A.
All Gilbane Group customers will continue to receive all the products and services they have signed up for and are used to receiving, and all coverage areas will continue. Additional products, services, resources and coverage areas will be available as we move forward.

Q. What does this mean for the Gilbane conferences?
A.
The Gilbane Group will continue to partner with Lighthouse Seminars to produce the Gilbane events. (Our next conference is Gilbane San Francisco, May 18 – 20).