Hello all! 

My first post on this forum, and at a rather heated moment, apparently

I'm the President of String Information Services, the company in question..

We're based in Washington, DC by the way, and I just came to know of this web site and this forum less than an hour ago -- when I received a call from someone who told me about this threat. 

After reading the thread, it's clear that there's a misunderstanding. 

And hence, I'd like to issue a clarification.

Background: I'd asked one of our employees to research vendor management companies -- a potential client group.  However, since the VMCs are a nascent industry, he couldn't find too much information. 

He came across your web site and forum, and shot out a terse one-line question -- the start of a lot of heat (and some misconceptions).. Whew!!!

To all readers of this forum:  I apologize on behalf of Balaji (my research assistant).  I've already reprimanded him for his less-than-articulate post -- however, I think his sin was terseness and crypticism, and laziness.  He had absolutely no intention of advertising.

Some other clarifications:

1) Is String trying to advertise its services?
A) No way.  Absolutely not.  The URL posting was by Anon/DC -- I have no idea who that is.  It's definitely not a String employee. 

2) Are we trying to sell title insurance or compete with vendor management companies?
A) Let me be very clear -- String does not sell title insurance and has no plans for doing so.  We also do not compete with vendor management companies.

We're just a back-office provider to the above (don't want to say more lest I be branded a shill)

3) Is this a "slick attempt to cull the names of vendor management companies from SOT members"?
No way..  Not sure how that impression came about.  Let's think this through For one, String comes into the picture way downstream, so we're not really "competing with abstracters" or trying to steal their clients.   And c'mon -- you'd hardly call Balaji's post "slick"

4) Are we harvesting the "heart of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />America" or "pulling out its organs"? 
Comments like this leave me dazed and confused.  And dare I say it, a tad hurt. 

I've issued such a long post because I wanted to clear up a lot of the inaccuracies that this thread had generated. 

if you want to discuss this further with me, please contact me off-line

Sincerely
Prashant