“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]

WE typically just ignore whatever the Gartner Group has to say because it is corrupt. More recently we also provided extensive evidence from antitrust exhibits [1, 2, 3, 4]. It's very much like lobbying, wherein money runs the country rather than law and regulation, so it's by no means surprising that Gartner hands a(nother) crown over to its paymasters from Redmond.

Gartner Research has named Microsoft a leader in four of its prestigious “Magic Quadrants,” including those for application infrastructure and database management.

There are other such groups that Microsoft pays to receive medals and praise from.

The industry of analysts is brutally corrupt, but a lot of people -- particularly in the press -- do not recognise this (or want to recognise this). The least Gartner could do in this case is add a disclaimer stating that Microsoft is one of its biggest customers (if not the biggest) and Bill Gates one of its funding sources. ⬆

There is no money in objective opinions