On the Gartner Ombudsman blog Nancy Erskine says this
"You get what you pay for. Gartner has 700 analysts studying all aspects of IT, using a rigorous, quality-controlled research process. Wouldn’t you rather have 700 full-time experts there to help you make mission-critical decisions worth millions of dollars that could make or break your business and career than depend on a document you got for free on the web?"
Come on - Gartner, when your clients call about Linux v/s Sun, VoIP v/s traditional voice/data, SaaS v/s licensed software, MySQL v/s Oracle, Wipro v/s Accenture do you similarly say "you get what you pay for" and always steer them to the (much) more traditional, typically more expensive option?
The influence game is changing rapidly and the traditional industry analyst's "market share" in the total spectrum of influencers has been shrinking for a while. Gartner sits on the pinnacle of industry intelligence. It knows how fast search engines like Google have been growing and the spread of blogs, podcasts and social networks, It knows how well sourcing advisors like TPI have been growing in the outsourcing field. It knows the budget pressure its CIO customers have been under the last few years and how its SG&A has grown as it tries to preserve revenues.
It also knows its vendor driven revenues have grown proportionately over the years. Having been at Gartner and stayed in touch with many of their analysts, I know most of them are fiercely independent. But do they go out of the way to scream that large incumbent vendors like IBM or Oracle are way over priced? Are they first to report Sony rootkit issues? No, the research is bland - tempered (as different from biased) by the vendor revenue influence. And buyers notice. In some ways Gartner has become the IBM of the 80s. You need the Gartner stamp on many IT decisions so you do not get fired, but the value is not often justifiable for the price.
Gartner, in my opinion, needs to swing back to being the CIO's friend and adviser. It needs to take stronger, earlier positions. If it means losing vendor revenues, that's fine (should not - vendors may not like it, but they clamor for access to a more influential firm). There are plenty of buyers it can advise who spend the trillion + dollars in technology a year. At the right price and with the right influence.
It also needs to keep expanding its products. Just like Accenture has been building its own offshore capabilities, SAP its own SaaS, telcos their own VoIP offerings, Gartner needs to expand its advisory and its blogging "market share".
Today the traditional research product is the lens through which Gartner still sees much of the world, and the world sees it. A bland, overpriced research product.
