Courtesy of Sadagopan I saw this InformationWeek article on Credibility of Analysts
Actually I liked Sadagopan's own views on the analyst firms here . He is an influential blogger himself and someone who helps Satyam (the 4th largest Indian offshore firm) shape the influence of analysts.
Brand names like Gartner and Forrester continue to carry a lot of weight in buying decisions. But not always through traditional analyst groups but often through their consulting, benchmarking and other services.
Jeff Nolan of SAP said in a presentation earlier this week that buyers increasingly rely more on peers more than "institutions" for counsel and advice. And as I wrote earlier there are still other influencers on buying decisions.
The sooner vendors and analyst firms quit pretending that big, sophisticated companies make decisions based on "quadrants" or "waves" the better. The buyer is in charge, has been in charge, will be in charge. That is why most well structured procurements take input from a number of sources and have various steps in the process, and minimize any bias any single influencer may have.
The WSJ reports today on potential conflict in the blogging community. Print media gets vendor ads. Analyst firms get vendor subscriptions. Wall Street firms get vendor banking revenues. My point above is still valid. Savvy buyers know how to offset any individual bias, if there is any.
