Tech Vendors Apparancy, SYSPRO Present News in 3-Day Industry Forum Ending at Shedd Aquarium; JRocket President Judith Rothrock Sets Mark Again for Unique, Informative IT Analyst Relations Format
CHICAGO (June 24, 2014) – JRocket Marketing, a provider of strategic marketing and IT analyst relations services for enterprise technology vendors, announced today the conclusion of the annual JRocket Marketing Grape Escape® 2014 event. Held this year in Chicago with the theme of “Gangster Land – Swimming with the Big Fishes”, the event featured three days of news, customer testimonials and product presentations from enterprise technology vendors Apparancy and SYSPRO. The forum concluded with an evening event at the Shedd Aquarium, the largest indoor aquarium in the world, featuring more than 8,000 aquatic animals.
For more than a dozen years, Grape Escape has featured dozens of software, service and networking vendors as part of JRocket Marketing’s Nitro service, a dedicated IT analyst relations service that is one of two distinct products offered by JRocket Marketing. Over the course of the past decade alone, the event has collectively drawn more than 200 of the industry’s leading technology analysts who attend to gain strategic positioning and product insights from both emerging and established vendors. One of its unique twists is customer inclusion.
“Quality time is hard to come-by for analysts with customers and solutions providers,” said Ann Grackin, CEO of Chainlink Research. “Grape Escape allows IT analysts to ‘escape’ from the usual analyst road show propaganda many companies put on. It allows quality time to hear from the heart the real stories of customers (of the tech companies) and their journey.”
This year’s event showcased two California tech providers, Silicon Valley based newcomer Apparancy, a business process platform provider, and enterprise resource planning vendor SYSPRO, based out of Los Angeles suburb Costa Mesa. Apparancy launched a new solution aimed at U.S. veterans called VetApprove and updated analysts on its new healthcare platform initiative. SYSPRO advanced key new features on its SYSPRO Espresso mobile solution and released roadmap plans, plus its newest manufacturing survey, called SNAP.
“JRocket Marketing Grape Escape® 2014 was heralded a tremendous success by industry analysts attending the three-day Chicago event that featured two of the most revolutionary disruptive technology vendors on the scene today: SYS PRO and Apparancy,” said Maria DeGiglio, Principal Analyst of the Robert Frances Group. “This year’s ‘gangster land style’ themed 3-day conference event was innovative, valuable in vendor content and infinitely memorable. JRocket Marketing raises the bar for showcasing spot-on and razor-sharp vendor technologies to the IT analyst community.”
Chicago Landscape and Capone-Style Theme
Each year the event is known throughout the tech industry analysts for themes and event venues that are out of the norm. Featuring vendors that do not have the resources to fund the rock star and former politicians, etc. that are the more usual fare at big software industry events, Grape Escape doesn’t disappoint IT analysts who often fly there from other countries and continents.
“Judith Rothrock consistently sets the bar high in terms of expectations for her JRocket Marketing Grape Escape®, which is always jam-packed with great content in addition to being a fantastic event,” said Cindy Jutras, President of Mint Jutras. “This year’s event at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium did not disappoint, with fascinating SYSPRO customer stories and compelling presentations from Apparancy partners. It was another excellent event.”
Following three days of back-to-back vendor meetings, analysts (who donned appropriate 1920’s stylized gangster clothing, fedoras and feather boas) were delivered to the evening event at the Shedd Aquarium via the “Untouchables Gangster Tours” of Chicago. Following visits to sites like the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre and other notable gangster land crime scenes they were delivered to the famous aquarium. Once there, they heard presentations from the vendors’ customers, partners and associates: Rochester Electronics, lOOOBulbs.com, The Hunter-Wimberly Group and SaaSOptics. The IT analysts were also treated to gangster-themed entertainment including a press conference interrupter who eventually ended up in cement shoes in the tank, and a gangster-mime show by Ariana Productions.
“JRocket Marketing Grape Escape 2014, as usual, provided the IT analyst community with critical insights into the strategic plans of leading vendors,” said R. David Hofferberth, Founder & Managing Director of Service Performance Insight. ”The quality of the venue and content enabled us to optimize our learning experience while attending an enjoyable three-day program.“
Even smaller, emerging technology vendors get time with key technology analysts that might be otherwise unaffordable for them to book advisory time. Conversely, the analyst community can identify tomorrow’s leaders at the venue. “The JRocket Marketing Grape Escape is a great analyst event to discover enterprise software vendors, thanks to Judith and her team, who are continuously underlining the benefits of adopting business technology,” said Raluca Druta, Research Analyst, Technology Evaluation Centers. “Most certainly, this event has a great future, as it introduces analysts to vendors of all kinds: this summer in Chicago we were able to get the inside scoop on software from business process management vendor Apparancy and enterprise resource management vendor SYSPRO.”
JRocket Marketing has moved to The Colony, TX (outside Dallas), and can be reached at (972) 294-5100 or viewed at www.jrocketmarketing.com.
JRocket Marketing
T: 972.294.5100
