of its best sales results for repeat
customers. Last year, it had planned
a coordinated launch of a new
version across retail stores, online
merchants, resellers and catalog
sales, says Kim Johnston, vice president of marketing at Parallels. But
the product mysteriously turned up
early on the shelf at a store. After a
fan posted a photo online, customers began chattering about it on
Twitter and Facebook.
The company decided to launch
the product early exclusively for
existing customers and used social
vehicles such as Twitter and its blog
to tell people about the early availability. The result was an upgrade
rate that was more than five times
better than the rate for any previous upgrade launch, according to
Johnston. In addition, she says,
when the new version officially
launched, the company had more
new licensees than expected
because of the buzz. n
elisabeth horwitt is a freelance
reporter and a former Computerworld senior
editor based in waban, mass. contact her at
ehorwitt@verizon.net. nancy GohrinG
covers mobile phones and cloud computing for the Idg news service. contact her at
idG enterprise
492 old connecticut path
p.o. Box 9208
Framingham, ma 01701-9208
(508) 879-0700
Fax (508) 875-4394
president/ceo
michael Friedenberg
(508) 935-4310
executive assistant
to the president/ceo
pamela carlson
(508) 935-4274
sales
Bob melk
senior Vice president & group publisher/cmo
(415) 975-2685
Brian glynn
senior Vice president, digital sales
(508) 935-4586
sean weglage
senior Vice president, digital sales
(415) 978-3314
custom solutions Group
charles Lee
senior Vice president
(508) 935-4796
diGital solutions Group
gregg pinsky
senior Vice president/general manager
(508) 271-8013
editorial
John gallant
senior Vice president/chief content officer
(508) 766-5426
events
ellen daly
senior Vice president
(508) 935-4273
Finance & operations
matthew c. smith
senior Vice president/coo
(508) 935-4038
human resources
patty chisholm
senior Vice president
(508) 935-4734
marKetinG
sue yanovitch
Vice president
(508) 935-4448
