12.21.10
Fresh Allegations That Gartner is Corrupt and Magic Quadrant Positions Are ‘for Sale’
Summary: Gartner’s reputation is under fire again, after allegations that “Gartner’s views can be bought”
TECHRIGHTS is sceptical of so-called professional analysts, just as it sometimes distrusts the corporate press, which is selling bias and advertising. The “content” is the product and the pseudo-reporting often just the “fill”, which helps sell the content (be it bias or an advertised product). “Analysts sell out,” explained Microsoft [PDF], “that’s their business model” and we spent a lot of time writing about the Gartner Group, which sells a lot of products/services to Microsoft while gagging journalists. Last year and early this year we wrote about a lawsuit against Gartner. ZL alleged that Gartner offered positions in exchange for cash and took Gartner to court over it. Gartner is now being hit again:
Ferris Research, an analyst firm focused on messaging, compliance and collaboration, is asking IT vendors to let the firm know if Gartner has ever improved any of their magic quadrant positions in return for cash.
Gartner is currently battling a defamation and trade libel claim from an IT company which has not been ranked as well as it may have hoped.
Gartner is a prominent IT analyst company and regularly issues MQs, or Magic Quadrants, for a variety of IT disciplines, such as external controller-based storage.
The four-box MQ places suppliers in one of four boxes plotted against two axes. “Completeness of vision” runs from left to right, and “ability to execute” runs vertically. This provides a bottom left-hand box for niche players, an upper left-hand box for challengers, a lower right-hand box for visionaries and an upper right-hand one for leaders.
It is generally thought that a substantial proportion of customers will only buy IT products and services from suppliers in particular MQ boxes, such as the top-right leaders’ quadrant.
[...]
Ferris is asking vendors to tell him, openly or in confidence, if Gartner reps alluded to better Gartner reviews if clients bought Gartner services, if their MQ position changed for the better or worse after paying or not paying for services, and if they believe Gartner reports are pure opinion or fact.
He suggests Ferris Research:
may try to testify to the Federal Trade Commission. This in turn would likely trigger e-discovery at Gartner. If this confirms that Gartner’s views can be bought, this would confirm ZL’s assertions, and would be very damaging to Gartner. Your identity would be kept entirely anonymous and no one, including Gartner, will ever know you’ve testified.
Red Hat’s Harish Pillay wrote regarding the above: “No surprises with how these “ANALyst” companies work”.
It’s not much different at Forrester, IDC, and the Yankee Group. Just like patent lawyers, these people created a meta-market for themselves — one that acts as a tax (recommendation tax) and contributes merely nothing but ‘protection’ from itself. █
