11.02.08
IDC, Gartner and Yankee Group’s Latest Press Attack on Customer’s Competitors
If Microsoft pays the bills, then Microsoft pays the shills
Earlier this week we mentioned the FUD which came from IDC in order to hurt VMware. Watch Microsoft singing the manufactured disinformation from IDC. It’s a classic Slog maneuver wherein some ‘study’ — no matter how inaccurate — is produced and then cited en masse, with inaccuracies — if ever found — blamed on the ones with the hatchet.
The figures have been seized upon by Microsoft and emphasised in the company’s corporate blog on Microsoft TechNet. “Customers now have choice in market. VMware is no longer the dominant server virtualisation vendor (less than 50 percent [of the market]). Customers now have choices that include Microsoft, Citrix, Sun, Novell, RedHat and Oracle.”
To give the gist of it, IDC lied to the public, just as it lies about GNU/Linux. Microsoft, which is among IDC’s sponsors (it pays them for business), then used it as ‘ammunition’ while it lasted. It’s a typical trick with recent examples of use. Microsoft also exploits its control of IDC to sometimes conceal obligatory disclosures and redefine how numbers should get collected.
In many cases, so-called ‘analysts’ can — and maybe should — be treated as salespeople in suits [1, 2]. They sell perceptions. They sell out, as Microsoft admits as well.
“Analysts sell out – that’s their business model…”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
It is troubling to see how the press has shaped itself and the outcome is by no means surprising. They developed a habit where the journalist approaches analysts for composition of articles and then presents the words of those analysts, who are often involved with the companies that they comment on, as though these words were carved in stone.
To make matters worse, the journalists sometimes work for the very same company that employs quoted analysts. There are many of those who flip-flop between the roles, e.g. Michael Gartenberg, who has been an analyst, journalist and also a Microsoft evangelist on the company’s payroll. That’s how dirty this unethical industry can get.
“To make matters worse, the journalists sometimes work for the very same company that employs quoted analysts.”Need it be mentioned that IDC owns IDG, one of the biggest giants of the technology press? Need it be shown that they have Microsoft's money on their table, which is a possible explanation for what the world came to know as “Wintel press”? Remember Microsoft's views on advertisers; they come before development.
Anyway, regarding IDG, it has almost become a routine there to quote the very particular people whose opinion is financially tied to and biased in Microsoft’s favour. Now they pull a nasty one on Android.
In this latest article, why did Nancy Gohring approach Microsoft-associated analysts whose employer receives large cash flows from the company most affected (suffering Google-phobia). Is it the price/reward to conduct their distasteful and dishonest business?
In the article above, the Yankee Group [1, 2] and Gartner Group throw FUD at Android and even desktop GNU/Linux (which is totally unrelated to the subject of the article). These are friends of Steve Ballmer, remember? They did the same to iPhone, later to be proven wrong.
We choose to quote nothing from the ‘article’, but the headline alone, “New Android Apps a Mixed Bag, Should Improve,” would do harm. The whole article is just the weaving of comments from the Gartner Group and the Yankee Group. It might as well state in the headline that it’s merely the opinion of people who have Microsoft as a customer, much like Rob Enderle. █
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