FreeMarkets Inc. has launched a new department that it hopes will compete with the likes of Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the rest of the big consulting firms. The Pittsburgh-based company, which helps businesses buy products and services, has launched FreeMarkets Consulting Services to help clients solve global supply management (GSM) challenges and improve their bottom line results. "We've been offering services in a variety of ways for years," said FreeMarkets senior vice president Sarah Pfaff. "On the consulting side, we've been responsive of requests, but now are formalizing what we offer." FreeMarkets hired Ms. Pfaff in January and began building this new department. She said the company has made some hires and will continue to do so, but she declined to state numbers. Ms. Pfaff also declined to discuss new revenue or potential revenue for the firm, particularly considering this is the venture's formative year. "But this is a very important investment of FreeMarkets, and it is looking to be a major player in GSM consulting as well as rest of GSM," she said. Ms. Pfaff said companies that hire FreeMarkets for consulting services do not necessarily have to hire FreeMarkets for the rest of its supply software products and services. "Our consulting is not a Trojan horse for everything else," Ms. Pfaff said. "What we have that is differentiating is a level of expertise in GSM that is unmatched." Tim Minahan, vice president and managing director of supply chain research at the Aberdeen Group Inc., a Boston-based research firm, said FreeMarkets has always recognized that technology alone is not a panacea for supply management challenges.

Fast-food chain McDonald's reported recently that it plans to sell Internet access inside 100 locations in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas. Sixty of the 100 locations are already online and the balance will be available by September. The fast-food chain sells an hour of wireless access for $4.95, while a continuous 24-hour connection is $7.95. The Midwest is the last of three areas where the burger giant is tinkering with selling Web access via Wi-Fi, which creates 300-foot-radius areas where laptops can connect to the Internet without wires. The fast-food chain already sells Internet access inside 75 locations in both the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. McDonald's views providing Wi-Fi access as a way to sell more meals, not as a way to get into the Internet business because 80% of the people who buy food from McDonald's don't eat it there.

AT&T Wireless has begun selling Research In Motion's BlackBerry device with a color screen, helping the Canadian company to expand its core business audience. The new device will retail for $450 with $40 per month for service. Optional voice plans for the device will start at $20.

During last week’s blackout, most cell phone subscribers were unable to make calls when they reached for their handsets. Only the truly persistent were able to get through after the lights went out Verizon Wireless acknowledged and some users has difficulty well into this week due to ongoing outages on cellular transmission stations. The transmitter stations are powered by electricity, and most have battery backups that provide three to six hours of additional operation. But when the blackout stretched beyond six hours, the stations that were still working went dead. On Sept. 11, 2001, damage to cell phone antennas on the World Trade Center and heavy traffic brought wireless dialing to a standstill. The most recent blackout caused a surge in cell phone calls of four times the usual traffic in the area. Traditional lines continued working because phone companies have added back-up power throughout their systems, which also send electrical current to phones.

Having decided to split into two separate companies, Palm has developed a name for it’s new, hardware-only self: PalmOne. The company intends to call itself "Palm" until it finishes buying Handspring and spinning off its software unit this fall. On Wall Street, the familiar "PALM" ticker symbol will be replaced by PalmSource's "PSRC" and PalmOne's "PLMO." Once the split occurs, the operating system will keep the name "Palm" and other companies that use the OS in their products will be able to continue describing those gadgets as "Palm powered." Hardware company PalmOne will drop the well-known Palm logo from its products. But "Palm" will remain part of the name on the devices and that is important. The original devices were known as Palm Pilots, a term that became etched in consumers' minds, but had to be changed to settle legal issues raised by pen maker Pilot. The thing that's been consistent the whole time are those four letters, P-A-L-M and people respond to that identifier.

Email Marketing Day Draws Crowd

Lancaster, PA—Nearly 100 marketers and businesses gathered in Lancaster, PA to attend Email Marketing Day, a free seminar created by Listrak, LLC, makers of the Listrak email campaign management application. The half-day seminar examined the best practices of email marketing and presented turnkey tactics for email message creation, data collection and campaign refinement. The August 18th event, held at the Eden Resort, provided two seminar tracks; the first explored general email marketing topics, the second specifically focused on Listrak application tools and usage.

Two new Listrak features were also debuted during Email Marketing Day—the HTML Editor and a Template Manager. Unlike other email marketing applications, Listrak’s HTML Editor allows you to modify all aspects of the content while working directly within the message itself. The Template Manager feature lets you to easily choose the type of background, or shell, your message will be delivered in.

Presenters at Email Marketing Day included Listrak President Ross Kramer, Anthony Campisi of Annodyne Interactive in Philadelphia, Alex Hartzler of WebClients.Net in Harrisburg and other members of the Listrak team.

An overview of the information presented at Email Marketing Day is available online at www.listrak.com/emd.asp. This information includes slide handouts, white papers and photographs of the event.

Listrak will be exhibiting at the Direct Mail Association (DMA) Show in Orlando, FL on October 12-15, 2003, and again at the @D:Tech show in New York City, November 3-5, 2003.

For more information regarding Email Marketing Day or Listrak, contact Dan Miller at
717-627-6080, ext. 333. www.listrak.com