So, Gartner is getting sued over its Magic Quadrant. The complaint says
Defendant’s wrongful conduct has had, and continues to have, the effect of destroying competition in the enterprise market for archiving. …
..In addition, Defendant’s conduct has harmed, and continues to harm, the creative forces of American innovation, and, consequently, the long-term competitiveness of the American economy.
Frankly, that’s putting them on a pedestal. And timed for week of ITxpo will make for plenty of conversation in Orlando and in Twitterland
But as I wrote here, there are a thousand points of influence these days and Gartner (and other analyst firms) represent only a few of those points - - more so at the “top of the sales funnel” than in the due diligence or negotiation stages in a technology procurement.
This report in TechTarget confirms that sentiment
“End users aren't as frustrated by Gartner's research, but said they use the Magic Quadrant report sparingly, usually during early research in vendor selection. Several IT professionals said they took the findings with a grain of salt and assume that top-ranked vendors were also Gartner clients.
Still, many said they had to take the rankings into consideration, if only to appease C-level executives in their own companies who track the findings. Top-ranked vendors typically publicize their rankings within the media and for customers.
How much impact does Magic Quadrant PR? Not much, several IT pros said. "I would say [the Magic Quadrant] has about a 20% influence on the overall vendor decision," said one former IT executive at a New York publishing company. It is "certainly not a deal maker or breaker."
As far as creative forces of innovation, I have had no problems cataloging over 1,500 instances over last 4 years on my New Florence innovation blog – less than .1% have been identified in a Gartner report.
