Bonum Certa Men Certa

Another Hopeful 'Prophecy' From the Gartner Group('s Paying Clients)

"...analysts sell out. It's their business model..."

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]



Gartner was accused yesterday of setting the market's prices and rules, using disinformation. The streams of deception, or perception-shaping lies, just keep on coming. This time around, the Gartner Group gets echoed by InfoWorld, which had this to share.

"We advise clients that unless they have very strong IT resources, they should wait at least two years to think about deploying an open source database for mission-critical applications," says Colleen Graham, Gartner's longtime database market analyst.


As we noted right here, Oracle happens to be among the biggest subsidiaries of Gartner, so an open source database smear is only to be expected. That's just how this business works. We also saw it recently in the Financial Express where Frost & Sullivan, along with the Gartner Group, were responsible for some abominable FUD, with MySQL's market share claimed to be less than 1% (of course they selectively look at sales).

Gartner’s figures for annual sales of database software suggest that in 2005 and 2006, open source databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL had a Marketshare of less than 1%. Out of $105-million business estimated in India during 2006, according to Gartner, the open source vendors had a 0.2% Marketshare against Microsoft SQL’s share of 41.5%, Oracle’s 28.4% and IBM DB2’s of 17.6%. Gartner says it has not yet finalised data for 2007.

Another study, by Frost & Sullivan, based on an analysis of 300 enterprises across India, indicates that the Indian database market in 2006 was $148.6million (which is higher than the Gartner figure) and is expected to reach $424 million by 2010. Whatever be the numbers in terms of size, Sun...


We wrote about Frost & Sullivan in [1, 2]. Both firms (Gartner and Frost & Sullivan) are paid by Microsoft and at least one is well paid by Oracle as well. It is rather absurd that they claim to be able to gauge Free software usage. See this post about the market share lie.

“Perceptions get propagated, yet they are seeded in newspapers which parrot so-called analysts on contract.”MySQL has been downloaded over 100,000,000 times. Downloaded, not sold. Additionally, it comes preinstalled with some free software distributions, including GNU/Linux. Adding to one's attention, how many blogs out there in India run MySQL? One should actually ponder how many blogs are not yet driven with Free software somewhere in the stack and also powered by MySQL.

The examples above are in full alignment with arguments you find elsewhere. FUD spreads. Perceptions get propagated, yet they are seeded in newspapers which parrot so-called analysts on contract. The same arguments are often getting used to downplay the role of GNU/Linux.

Database FUD is one thing, but in this particular case it comes from the very same firm that used to slam GNU/Linux and now come figures that contradict its own FUD. From the new article cited at the top:

But you can't blame any cooling of the open source phenomenon for the weak traction of open source databases. Open source on the operating system, for example, sees continued gains: Linux was the No. 3 relational database OS with 15.5 percent market share in 2006, when it grew by 67 percent over the previous year, Gartner found. (Stats for 2007 won't be ready for another few months.)


The following new comment speaks about how Gartner used to slam many things before they become too popular and widespread for their importance to be denied. That's when commoditisation threatened their clients. It puts it in good perspective the article above, to which it's referring.

Seriously, I don't trust anything coming out of ZDNet, Gartner, and a whole host of others. They've been dead wrong on a vast number of important things for YEARS now- at least a decade or more of it. Want junk advice- go looking to them for it.


Gartner's word should remain as credible as the hand that feeds it. Watch again the quote at the top of this post. The press should really become more cautious when quoting people in reference to matters where wealthy clients are secretly involved. Financially even.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Law Firms Facing the Consequences for Patently Abusive Litigation on Behalf of Microsoft Employees Who Got Arrested for Strangulation and Had Done Even Worse Things
Having spent 1.5 years bullying me with patronising letters on behalf of Microsofters, last week they got served a massive bill and, in effect, lost the Hearing
LLMs Breaking Everything
Computing and the Net became a playground for scammers and "bros", like people who "invented" fake currencies and also try to tell us that LLMs spewing out things will have some real value
1989: Free Software as "Open" Software (OSI Didn't Coin "Open Source", It Also Predates Linux)
"One man's fight for Free software"
 
The FSF Board and FSF Beard
So the FSF's Board has grown
New Report From the EPO's Staff Representatives in The Hague (LSCTH) Reveals Many Unsolved Issues
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) wrote to staff just before the weekend
Links 22/06/2025: More Slop Lawsuits (Copyrights) and "America’s Oligarch Problem"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Gigantic Toolchest and Annoying Bots
Links for the day
The Calling
Persist and persevere, justice will come your way
So Far Every BetaNews 'Article' is LLM Slop, So BetaNews is Officially Just a Slopfarm
They just don't seem to value what they have
IBM Rumour: Mass Layoffs (RAs) Lists Being Made for Consulting, With Effect in July 2025
Bogus companies with no viable products and no world-leading (in their field) staff are doomed to perish
Links 21/06/2025: Data Breach With 16 Billion Passwords, Dutch Government Recommends Children Under 15 Stay off TikTok and Instagram
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Notes about Typst (and LaTeX) and Opos
Links for the day
Microsoft's Competition Tactics: Sabotage GNU/Linux Installs, Block Chrome
Edge is dying
The Microsoft OOXML Modus Operandi: Throw 1,000 Pages of Other People's Work for a Judge to Read Ahead of a One-Hour Meeting
No time to discuss this - that's the point
Formalities Officers (FOs) at the EPO Are in Trouble, Reveals Internal Report
We already know, based on an HR pattern we saw at IBM and elsewhere, that reallocating roles can be prerequisite for dismissal and those who do so expect many to resign anyway
The Web is Slop and FUD, Let's Go to Gemini Protocol
Lupa sees self-signed capsules at 92.4%
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 20, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 20, 2025
Links 21/06/2025: Phone Bans for Concerts, Tensions in Taiwan Strait
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Spoilers, Public Yggdrasil Node, Changes to AuraGem Search
Links for the day
"Six years of Gemini!"
From gemini://geminiprotocol.net
Gemini Links 20/06/2025: Summer Updates and Hardware Failures
Links for the day
Links 20/06/2025: Google Shareholder Sues Google and Google Sued for Defamatory Slop ('Hey Hi') Word Salads ('Summaries')
Links for the day
Linux Journal Might Have Become the Latest Slopfarm Targeting "Linux", the Trends Are Concerning for Dying News Sites
They tarnish the Web with junk and then die
On "Learning to Code"
quality may suffer, plus things get bloated
Quick Points Regarding This Week's Court Hearing
it paves the way for us to squash all the SLAPPs from Microsofters
Common Mistake: Believing Social Control Media Will Document Your Writings/Thoughts and Search Engines Like Google Will Help You Find These
Many news sites wrongly assumed that posting directly to Twitter would be acceptable
The Manchester Bees and This Hot Summer
We have had a fantastic week so far this week
Gemini Protocol Enters Its Seventh Year, Growth Has Accelerated!
Maybe in June 20 2026 there will be over 3,500 active capsules?
Mastodon and the Fediverse Have an Issue: Liability for Content (Even in Other Instances) and Costs
self-hosting is the only logical path forward
Why Microsoft and Its 'Hey Hi' (Slop) Frenzy Fail While Sinking in Deep, Growing Debt
Right now, like Twitter around the time it was sold to MElon, "open" "hey hi" is a big pile of debt with a lot to pay for that debt (interest payments)
Europe is Leaving Microsoft, the Press Coverage Isn't Sufficiently Helpful
The news is generally positive, but the press coverage leaves so much to be desired
Slopwatch: Linuxsecurity, BetaNews, and Linux Journal
slippery slope
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 19, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 19, 2025
Gemini Links 20/06/2025: Gemini Protocol Turns 6!
Links for the day