Case Studies: Harris Interactive

As founder of the renowned Harris Poll and with over 40 years of experience, Harris Interactive (Nasdaq: HPOL) established itself as a world leader in Internet-based market research and polling. Through a blend of Internet-based and traditional methods of information gathering, they are able to provide clients with market intelligence and opinions needed to compete and survive in the new economy.

Individual volunteers participate in on-line market research and polling studies by answering questions on various topics including health care, the economy, science and technology, foreign affairs, politics, lifestyles and sports and entertainment. They release the published results to the media on a weekly basis.

In 1998, as the number of Internet Panel volunteers continued to grow into the millions, Harris Interactive realized that greater scalability, provided by externally developed software, would provide greater efficiency in conducting their on-line surveys.

"While seeking a solution that could meet our requirements, our concerns involved not only a software with greater scalability, but also one that could interact with our extensive database and have the ability to perform mail-merge activities in order to deliver customized messages," said Leonard Bayer, Executive VP and Chief Scientist at Harris Interactive.

Speed of delivery was a key factor due to the high number of subscribers to the on-line panel as well as the option to pre-test the software without making a major commitment.

After evaluating numerous software options in their extensive search for the perfect solution, Harris Interactive selected L-Soft's LISTSERV^® email list software and LSMTP^® email delivery software.

"L-Soft's products offered the functionality, reliability, productivity and scalability that we needed, at an affordable price," stated Bayer. "L-Soft's software, known for its high performance and scalability also had the ability to be easily integrated into the current production environment of Harris Interactive."

L-Soft's solutions successfully supported Harris Interactive's growing Internet Panel. Currently, between 500,000 and 1.5 million fully customized email messages are sent every day to the Harris Poll OnLine Panel, which now consists of approximately 6.2 million subscribers – a number they expect to grow to 10 million by the end of 2000. L-Soft's products satisfactorily facilitated on-line market research and polling studies and its platforms displayed excellent performance and stability. According to Bayer, by meeting the needs of Harris Interactive's software developers and technicians rather than just supporting marketing, "L-Soft's software are mission-critical to our entire operation."

Case study written in April 2000 with the assistance of Leonard R. Bayer, Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist, Harris Interactive.

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