It is Gar*ner’s World and We Are Just Lucky to Live in It

As many of my colleagues know I have wanted to write a post about Gar*ner for a while now. There are many things about Gar*ner that bother me but I wanted to check my facts first before writing this. So, I set out to do some research on this “amazing” organization and the wonderful things that they do for our industry. So, I read numerous articles, blog posts, and most importantly I talked with several current or former employees/researchers about their practices and the “value” they provide in their research.

If you ask them, or for that matter they will simply tell you, that they are invaluable to the IT industry and to be honest without their “forward thinking” and unbiased research who knows where most organizations would be today. However, after my own experiences and the research I performed on Gar*ner it is clear to me that they truly don’t provide any real value to our industry. The only value obtained from their “magic quadrant” is the marketing the companies who are so “blessed” to be in that list gain and getting on that list is an extremely “skeptical” process at best. Some of you may be wondering why I keep using the term Gar*ner to refer to the organization and that is a funny but truly telling story of its own. Check out the experience this blogger had when he attempted to reference Gar*ner in a blog post. This truly shows the level of arrogance and pure ignorance of this organization. There are some follow ups to this story that add even more depth to the whole incident and highlight the true nature of the stance taken by Gar*ner.

There are several other stories that truly highlight the level of ignorance (or maybe arrogance) of this organization lately but this one seems to show it best. It is clear based on this post that Gar*ner truly believes they know better than the rest of us little people and we should simply bow and believe - http://identityblog.burtongroup.com/bgidps/2009/10/gartner-gets-privacy-dead-wrong.html.

The Facts about the “Magic Quadrant”. Everyone in our industry knows that when a lot of our customers or colleagues are trying to decide on a specific product to fulfill a need within their IT Architecture they look for Gar*ner’s “magic quadrant” report. They truly believe that report to be a thorough and unbiased review of all players within that market space and that Gar*ner has provided them with a great service. I know many vendors within the market who peddle these reports around as if it were “gold” and use it as their main selling piece. I will refrain from commenting in this blog the same way I do with my colleagues but this whole process is broken, flawed, and smells fishy to me. It appears that the process works as follows:

  • Gar*ner researchers are supposed to be an independent body within the organization that do not have any ties or responsibilities to other organizations or profit/quotas. I do applaud them on that as “it didn’t used to be that way”, as was made clear to me from a former Gar*ner researcher.
  • Here is where the problem lies…
    • A researcher truly only spends time with organizations that are Gar*ner clients learning about and reviewing their products. So, the only people the researches talk with are the ones who are paying for Gar*ner’s “services”. By services they mean having a researcher sit down with the organization (development teams, sales, marketing etc.) and talk about their products capabilities, the future of that market segment and how they fit into it.. The more money you pay to Gar*ner the more time you spend with the researchers on a consistent basis talking about the market and their products.
    • If you are not a Gar*ner client then the researcher has to review your product on their own time or talk with customers who use it and get their feedback. A former Gar*ner researcher admits that he knew of only 2 people while he worked there that ever did their own independent research.
    • The other portion of the “magic quadrant” comes from customer reviews and feedback on the products. Well who do you think the researcher talks with, yes you guessed it, references provided by their clients or other current Gar*ner clients. Again, unless the researcher takes it upon themselves to do independent reviews with customers not hand picked by the vendor there is no true review.

So, next time you read or come across the Gar*ner “magic quadrant” please read it with a grain of salt and please advise your customer or colleagues to do the same. This industry has enough problems that are real, allowing incorrect or misleading “research” to drive our purchasing and thus architecture decisions is only going to make the situation much worse.

P.S. This is all my opinion that I derived based on my own experiences with Gar*ner and interviews with former and current employees.

P.S.S. There is a pool within the company as to how long it takes before we are threatened with legal action based on this posting. Anyone think 7 days is a good bet?

- David Amsler