The author, founder of the company, remembers the first twenty years. At the moment he is not active anymore, but still has the title of Honorary President.
MATE was founded in 1986 by Daniele Gerundino, with partners from technology-oriented companies, such as Quinary (at the time led by Massimo Massironi), UniRel (Sandro Saccenti) and Microsystems (Marco Tausel).
Gerundino, by background a physicist, acquired significant experience in market intelligence and consulting as leading industry analyst in PGP Sistema (later re-named Nomos Sistema and then acquired by Gartner Group), a market research firm which was the Italian representative of the US consultancy INPUT at the time.
This experience, and in particular the close link to the booming US IT industry of those days, were the basis for the establishment of MATE. Gerundino was well aware of the extraordinary potential of the IT revolution and of its impact on business and society. He got captured by the idea of creating a new consulting company focused on emerging technologies, contributing to the dissemination of knowledge and the development of new markets.
The key, distinctive elements of MATE’s value proposition were (and are still today) professionalism and client centricity. MATE combines the talents of qualified and experienced professionals in complementary fields (information technology, marketing and communication, strategic planning) around a company business model literally obsessed with quality and flexibility of service, aiming at delivering substantial value to its customers.
The concept of relying on a network of specialists (including strong international partnerships) to build knowledge and deliver superior performance is probably more common today: in the mid-eighties, however, it was truly innovative – at least in Italy. And MATE made it work, remarkably well.
In the past 25 years MATE has covered fast growing IT fields, helping leading companies to understand market opportunities and to take advantage of emerging technologies.
MATE is recognized as the leading Italian industry analyst which pioneered Electronic Publishing, UNIX, Open systems, Open Source Technologies, Internet and eBusiness (the latter in partnership with Forrester Research, between 1998 and 2002).
During the 90s, MATE’s monitoring of the Italian UNIX market (and its landmark annual report) helped to shape the actions of some of the main players and contributed to the development of the market. The series of events “Digital Economy Italy”, and “Mobile Commerce Italy” organized until a few years ago, provided leading venues for professionals, IT vendors, end-users and journalists and were recognized as a model in terms of quality, richness of content and engagement of participants.
“Sardinia is future” is probably the best example of MATE's capabilities in designing and managing important events. The event, focused on highlighting the main tendencies and potential in the field of knowledge-intensive industries and to launch the Sardinia Polaris’ research center, was organized in February 2003 with the support of government authorities at the national and local level. It attracted more than 600 delegates, 30 exhibitors, and 35 journalists, and brought teleportation technology to Italy for the very first time. The renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil was “teleported” to the event and by means of this unique technology, he appeared live and life-size within an apparent 3-D environment even though he was located in Boston. Leading personalities, such as Carlo Rubbia (Nobel Prize winner and former President of ENEA, Italian Agency for Energy and Environment protection) and Renato Soru (founder and CEO of Tiscali and subsequently President of the Sardinia region) figured among the speakers.
Through its market research and consulting services, MATE has acquired unique knowledge and experience of the key Italian SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) market segment, helping a variety of players (technology vendors, industry associations, chambers of commerce and other institutions) to better understand this reality, with a view to design and promote more successfully products and services targeting SMEs.
Around the years 2004-2005, further to a stronger involvement of Marco Pancotti and Luca Buraggi as shareholders and managers of the company, MATE has focused its attention and services on technology planning and operational support – helping companies to make the best use of IT (including leading edge technologies) to improve their business processes.
