With EasyAsk being acknowledged as a Cool Vendor for 2012, I figured it would be a good idea to give you some insight into why it’s cool. So let’s take a look at a couple of past winners.
In 2011, Bazaarvoice was acknowledged as a Cool Vendor. Bazaarvoice is a multinational internet marketing company that specializes in user-generated content through customer reviews. It has become one of the largest social marketing companies in the world, with over 500 customers including: Best Buy, Macy’s, Costco., and Home Depot. Bazaarvoice recently went public in February of 2012, and their present market cap is just under $1 Billion! Pretty cool . . .
Also in 2011, Instagram was acknowledged as a Cool Vendor. Instagram is a free photo-sharing program for social networking services. You’ll find photos all over Twitter and Facebook that are launched through Instagram. In fact, this program, which was only launched in October of 2010, was recently (April of 2012) acquired by Facebook for $1 Billion in cash and stock. With over 30 million accounts, you can see why the social media giant wanted to snatch them up. Very cool!
Previously Splunk was named a Cool Vender. Splunk, according to their site “makes machine data accessible, usable and valuable to everyone.” And as of April 2012, they are the first Big Data company to go public, with over 3,500 customers in more than 75 countries. That’s cool on a global scale . . .
Another former recipient, SugarCRM, is the fastest growing CRM provider on the planet, and was selected in 2011 as an IBM Global Alliance Partner for Cloud Services. They launched their own convention, SugarCon in 2007, and it is a show that has garnered more and more attendance as the years go by. They also happen to be a partner of EasyAsk. Now that’s beyond Cool, it’s Ice Cold…
In 2010, Jigsaw was acknowledged as a Cool Vendor. Jigsaw is a prospecting tool used by sales professionals, marketers and recruiters to get fresh and accurate sales leads and business contact information. With a directory of more than 30 million business contacts, Jigsaw has quickly proven to be a very useful asset. So much so, that Salesforce.com acquired them for $142 million. I’ve used it myself countless times to get accurate contact information. SalesForce, hmm? … cool.
And now it’s our turn. EasyAsk, the leader in Natural Language technology, being acknowledged as 2012 Cool Vendor.
EasyAsk recognized that Natural Language goes beyond the limits of Keyword. (something Google is now discovering, by the way) And we have used this technology to help over 300 customers, applying it to e-commerce, business data and have recently used it to design Quiri, a Voice-Enabled Natural Language mobile app for Corporate Data. Imagine Apple’s Siri, but for business. It’s that easy and that revolutionary.
So… Why is it cool to be a Cool Vendor? Well, one of the best ways to predict the future is to look at the past. With companies like the ones mentioned above, EasyAsk has certainly found itself in some cool company. To read more about EasyAsk becoming a Cool Vendor, click here or here.
One thing is for sure. We think Gartner has excellent vision and is pretty cool!