[ Thanks to Paul
Shread for this link. ]
“Last year, Gartner raked in $1.3 billion, so its
services appear to be solidly in demand. But while Gartner’s
reports generate plenty of cash, the Magic Quadrant garners a huge
amount of interest in the vendor community as well as the press.
Companies clamor to raise their rankings and regularly trot out
favorable results in their own press releases. Clearly, the clout
of Gartner carries some weight. But is it weighted too heavily in
favor of the mighty? If it does, Karp doesn’t necessarily think
this is the fault of the analyst firm.“”The Gartner MQ has tremendous value — as a marketing
tool for Gartner Group,” said Karp. “Many smaller companies lack
the time, finances and marketing wherewithal to engage effectively
with Gartner, and so get relatively little face time and no
visibility with them. While addressing this situation is certainly
something under Gartner’s control, we can’t really fault the
company for wanting to spend its time where the potential revenue
is.”