VICTORIA – AERS founder Anthony Sukow was on hand to receive the University of Victoria’s annual Craigdarroch Research Award on behalf of himself and his brother and co-founder Andrew Sukow last week.  As graduates of the University, both founders were gratified to receive the University of Victoria Innovation and Development Corporation Entrepreneurship Award.

This recognizes the company’s excellence in providing data analytics and research tools in decision support, and AERS’ longstanding vision to deliver practical research based on transactional data.  “We were grateful to have been selected for this honour among such a fine group of peers,” said Anthony Sukow, “and this further underscores the strength of our longstanding partnership with UVic.“

The Craigdarroch Research Awards were established by the University of Victoria to recognize excellence in research, and were awarded for the first time in October 2003. The awards are named for Craigdarroch Castle, which served as home to the University of Victoria’s predecessor institution, Victoria College, from 1921 to 1946. Anthony and Andrew Sukow received one of six awards handed out to seven recipients.

AERS was conceived when both Andrew and Anthony Sukow were students at the University of Victoria, and operated out of the University until September 2005.  During its earliest stages, the first-time entrepreneurs benefited from significant mentorship, investment, and other support from the University, among other individuals and organizations.

Advanced E-commerce Research Systems Inc. specializes in delivering e-commerce-based analytics and insight to support the investment, product management, marketing, and advertising decisions of its thousands of clients. AERS does this based on its core competencies in storing and mining large e-commerce datasets. AERS is comprised of two main divisions: Terapeak supplies auction analysis to eBay sellers and buyers through an on-line web interface, while Advanced delivers data and custom research to the business sector. The company was founded in 2004, and monitors over ten million consumer transactions daily.

Media contacts:

AERS – Anthony Sukow
250-483-3270
anthony [at] aers.ca

UVic Communications – Valerie Shore
250-721-7641
vshore [at] uvic.ca

Yesterday, Apple revealed a smaller and simpler iPod Shuffle amid great hoopla.  The new product features more storage, a much smaller form factor, and a feature called “VoiceOver” which rather usefully, given the lack of a screen, tells you what song is playing and who the artist is.  Priced to move at $79 USD, this is a clear reinvestment in a market that has paid off handsomely for Apple.  This chart covering 26 months (to Feb 2009) of sales on eBay reveals that the smaller iPod models have grown to address a broader market than their older, larger siblings, despite the multi-year market lead of earlier iPods:

It also reveals a sharp gender bias — with women favouring smaller, more lightweight and inexpensive iPods to their larger, more feature-rich and large-screened bretheren.  These numbers show that there is a clear and specific market for women in the portable MP3 player marketplace, and Apple has it:  the company is virtually untouched in this segment among its competitors, except for a smattering of far less-hyped offerings like the Samsung Pebble.

Analysis after Apple’s numbers were announced last year revealed that Apple’s iPod growth numbers were beginning to flatten.  The Nano seems to a clear killer, cutting through the middle with both a small size and a screen, but iPod Shuffle sales reveal a most compelling gender bias: the gap between the Shuffle (47% female) and the original iPod (28%) is eye-opening.

So should competitors be eyeing the ladies’ market for portable music players?  Will we be seeing more pink iPods at the low end of the range in our near future?  We will let you know.