What’s wrong with being pro-Gartner anyway?

2007-07-12

"Interesting" question whether ARmageddon's pro-Gartner, or is anti-Gartner? I wonder if this whole line of thinking is missing the point. I mean, I know I'd rather have a bigger slice of all that subscription funding, they are the 800-pound gorilla after all - but is it so wrong to think, or indeed say, that Gartner might do at least some good things? I've seen a few magic quadrants in my time, and some of them are pretty well thought out, solid pieces of analysis that raise a bunch of seriously important questions that end-user organisations should be asking.

Of course, that doesn't mean everything they do is going to hit the target - and of course therefore, they should be subject to scrutiny - just like the rest of us. It's also been written that some vendors feel they have to pay Gartner's fees before they'll ever see themselves represented in the quadrants - rightly or wrongly - I know Gartner hotly contests this! It may even be that Gartner's product-oriented model is itself based on an industry as it was ten years ago, and not how it will be in the future - but that's an industry-wide issue, and it doesn't prevent Gartner analysts from being insightful in their own domains.

Meanwhile, we believe we have a whole bunch of differentiators that make us a pretty attractive alternative - always happy to share these! But perhaps its just too easy to bash Gartner because its Gartner, which equates to opinion, not analysis. The only people who can really decide whether or not Gartner is adding value are their enterprise customers, and that's not a revenue stream I see drying up any time soon.