Summary: Gartner is pulled to court for allegations of libel against non-customers

A FEW DAYS ago we added an overview page for the Gartner Group, which had been hired by Microsoft and occasionally attacked Free software.

This is all true and the facts are undeniable. There is court material exposing that type of stuff. In fact, I was invited to take part in a documentary film (for national television) which covers this issue. In quite a timely fashion comes this new libel complaint against Gartner:

ZL files fresh libel complaint against Gartner

Software firm ZL Technologies has filed a new libel complaint against IT researcher Gartner, after an earlier complaint was dismissed by a court last month.

The complaint, filed in a US district court in San Jose on Friday, centres on Gartner’s classification of ZL as a “niche” vendor in its Magic Quadrant reports.

District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled in early November that Gartner’s reports consituted “non-actionable opinion” which could not be the basis of a libel suit, but ZL argues that Gartner presents its analysts’ opinions as being “based on a body of fact”.

The text of this complaint can be found here. ⬆

“Analysts sell out - that’s their business model… But they are very concerned that they never look like they are selling out, so that makes them very prickly to work with.”

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]