Tenth Anniversary of A3 Communications

A3 Communications, a storage and virtualization PR agency, is celebrating its tenth anniversary this month.

To mark this achievement the company has announced the formal creation of its virtualization practice and launched its IT Question Time series of roundtables. It has also unveiled its new branding and website, and will throw an anniversary party to celebrate with the people who, over the years, have crossed paths with the agency.

At a time when organizations are becoming selective in their search for the right PR partner, A3 Communications is celebrating its first decade with new clients including Actifio, Atlantis Computing and Zadara Storage.

A3 Communications’ new virtualization practice will focus on promoting relevant products and services to raise the profile of new and existing technologies and foster sales growth for its clients. While a few very large brands such as Citrix, Microsoft and VMware remain the dominant players in this space, other vendors have unveiled alternative solutions and the industry is bound to change considerably over the coming two to five years. The creation of new practice will give companies in the desktop, network, server and storage virtualization space the opportunity to work with a team of industry-focused communications professionals offering high level of service backed by solid experience.

Following the newly-launched series of IT Question Time roundtables, A3 Communications will soon announce details of the next roundtable. Attendees of the first event, which focused on storage, said they had gained “a better understanding of the attending companies’ positions in the industry,” “ideas for new stories/blogs,” “useful new industry contacts,” and “a better understanding of what press and bloggers are interested in.”

The company’s anniversary celebrations will take place on 29th October at the Powering the Cloud conferences in Frankfurt, Germany, an annual event for which A3 Communications has provided PR support since 2005.

Congratulatory messages have come from vendors, journalists, bloggers and analysts among others:

• Analyst Josh Krischer: “I am happy to see how A3 communications has developed to become the leading PR/AR shop in storage.”
• Chris James, EMEA marketing director, Virtual Instruments: “Congratulations on your ten years in business. Technology and characters change year on year but you have managed to keep up with the trends and grow into a well respected agency across Europe.”
• Datacentre technologies evangelist Hans De Leenheer: “Thank you for being one of the few PR agencies that actually get what their customers and contacts need.”
• Craig Nunes, VP of storage marketing, HP: “I will never forget my first discussion with Fred back in 2004: PR that spoke my (storage/cloud) language together with relationships that really worked for both us and the journalist/analyst community. A3 helped put 3PAR on the map in the UK and best of all I made a great friend for life. Congrats Fred and happy birthday A3.“
• The Register‘s Chris Mellor: “Congrats Fred on starting up and building one of the best tech PR agencies in the UK.”
• John D’Avolio, former WW director of AR and PR at 3PAR, now at HP: “Congratulations on the huge milestone! Based on the fantastic services that you provide it’s no surprise that you are celebrating 10 years in business. Cheers!“
• The IDC EMEA storage team: “Congratulations A3 and a big thank you from Donna, Carla, Silvia, Jimena and Nick at IDC. Keep up the good work!“
• Jean-Jacques Maleval, StorageNewsletter: “Oh baby, only ten years, but a grown-up service.”

With a team based in the UK, Europe and the United States, A3 Communications has grown beyond recognition since it was established by Federica (Fred) Monsone ten years ago, but has stuck firmly to its founding principles.

Back in 2003, after several years working in large PR firms across a number of markets including storage, Fred seized the opportunity to set up an agency that would specialize in the area of storage.

She explains: “At the time the press would not cover networked storage on a regular basis and there certainly weren’t many reporters who focused exclusively on this market. But it was clear to me that this industry was going to keep on growing and that there was a gap for a specialist PR agency. I dare to say that I was right on both counts.”

“Even after representing over 70 companies in the storage and virtualization spaces, from start-ups to household brands, it is still exciting to sit down with a new client and flesh out the strategy for a brand new programme. I am thrilled with the recognition that A3 Communications has come to enjoy and I would like to thank everyone who has helped us get where we are today, including my team, past and present clients, and of course all the writers and influencers we work with day in day out. I am looking forward to many more years of expansion and success.”