Phronia Counsel
An independent analyst firm for the technology decisions that matter.
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What to do
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Why
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When
Phronia Counsel advises enterprise and vendor leaders on the decisions that shape their technology and their markets. We tell you what to do, why, and when — and we stop there. We don't implement, and we don't choose your vendors or your people. That boundary is deliberate: the moment an advisor profits from the execution, the advice stops being trustworthy.
Integrity, by structure
We serve two sides of the same market — and we tell both the truth.
The CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs making technology decisions, and the vendors deciding how to position and where to compete. Nothing a vendor pays for shapes the counsel an enterprise receives; nothing an enterprise pays for shapes how we read a vendor. Information flows into judgment, never between clients.
The value isn't the recommendation. It's the reasoning underneath it — the practical wisdom that comes from forty years inside these systems, not from observing them from the outside. We show our work, because the why is the part you can actually use.
The name
Phronia is drawn from phronesis (φρόνησις) — the Greek word for practical wisdom. Not the knowledge you take from study, but the understanding that comes from experience: knowing the right thing to do, in a specific situation, because you have stood there before.
Phronia publishes its positions on the technology market in the open, and works privately with a small number of leaders who want that judgment applied to their own situation.
Who's behind it
Phronia Counsel was founded by Howard Holton — forty years in technology, twenty of them as a CIO, CTO, and CISO, most recently CEO and Chief Product Officer of GigaOm.
Get in touch
To talk about whether Phronia is a fit for your situation, write to howard@phronia.co.