Verity is another company that stressed the value of its brand-name. The company develops tools that allow other companies to index, publish, search and personalize information in a network, whether it be an enterprise or Internet affair. They are focusing on groupware extensions for existing products, launching with Microsoft's Exchange groupware, and enhancing their product for the next iteration of the Lotus Notes groupware. Their revenue mix is evenly split between enterprises and the Internet right now, suggesting that Internet business has grown tremendously. Verity's approach has been to get their foot in the door everywhere cheaply, as opposed to their main competitor Fulcrum, which has been growing revenues with higher price points at the expense of market share.
Brand name is something that can be incredibly important in a business.
Xerox, which has the top brand name in copying, has not done a heck of a lot with it. By contrast, Kleenex, which is the main brand name in tissues, has taken over the world. What branding does is allows you to sell your product at higher price points and still hold incredible market share. Despite the fact that Kiplinger and others have come into Intuit's market at a lower price points, Intuit has still gained share. Well, AOL has taken its consumer service and started packaging private AOL areas for companies like Merrill Lynch, Harvard Business School, MIT's Business School and many others, billing the companies separately for usage on their area rather than billing the customers.