Comments on: Vendors and analysts http://ciomind.biz/2007/03/12/vendors-and-analysts/ Do you REALLY want to know what’s inside? Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:05:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Felix Enescu http://ciomind.biz/2007/03/12/vendors-and-analysts/#comment-56 Felix Enescu Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:03:25 +0000 http://ciomind.biz/2007/03/12/vendors-and-analysts/#comment-56 Not my "simple description". I was quoting an article. Please take a look at previous post: http://ciomind.biz/2007/01/19/analyst-reports-how-to-read-them/ to see what I recommend. Not my “simple description”. I was quoting an article. Please take a look at previous post: http://ciomind.biz/2007/01/19/analyst-reports-how-to-read-them/ to see what I recommend.

]]> By: Earl Perkins http://ciomind.biz/2007/03/12/vendors-and-analysts/#comment-55 Earl Perkins Wed, 14 Mar 2007 04:38:56 +0000 http://ciomind.biz/2007/03/12/vendors-and-analysts/#comment-55 Perhaps you or others could suggest an alternative model to what you describe. I have just returned to the analyst world after working for a major vendor for the past 1-1/2 years and using analyst services. Prior to being an analyst, I was a buyer of analyst services as an IT professional for almost 2 decades. While nothing was perfect, analyst input served as useful insight to my business decisions, both as a vendor and as an IT professional. As analysts, we lose our credibility (and our ability to make all of that money you appear to feel is undeserved) if our output isn't as fair and as balanced as it can possibly be. We realize that with the advent of the web and the variety of other inputs into business decisions that we need to provide real value, not a "me too" news or web log of ruminations or rumors. Most of us are veterans of several worlds (e.g. vendor, IT professional, service provider)and have some perspective on what matters. I admire your simple description of the methodology by which startups as well as established vendors "work the system" of analysts. It's similar to describing nuclear power as a method by which water is heated to make steam so electricity is generated. It is a cynical view that I frankly wish was accurate, because if so we would be far richer than we actually are. The truth is far more complex. Analyst firms do have some authority in the market today with vendors, but only if we (a) understand the market they're in, (b) provide consistently good advice that they pay for (yep, free enterprise stuff) that has to be accurate at least most of the time or they find another place to get that advice (yep, there are other places to get it too, more free enterprise stuff) and (c) maintain strict neutrality in the process. If it appears to the cynical or inexperienced as price-fixing and monopolistic, I regret that. If the hours we are working to fulfill our commitments to vendors and clients alike are part of a monopoly, God help us if we ever make it to a competitive market for research and advisory services. :-/ Perhaps you or others could suggest an alternative model to what you describe.

I have just returned to the analyst world after working for a major vendor for the past 1-1/2 years and using analyst services. Prior to being an analyst, I was a buyer of analyst services as an IT professional for almost 2 decades. While nothing was perfect, analyst input served as useful insight to my business decisions, both as a vendor and as an IT professional.

As analysts, we lose our credibility (and our ability to make all of that money you appear to feel is undeserved) if our output isn’t as fair and as balanced as it can possibly be. We realize that with the advent of the web and the variety of other inputs into business decisions that we need to provide real value, not a “me too” news or web log of ruminations or rumors. Most of us are veterans of several worlds (e.g. vendor, IT professional, service provider)and have some perspective on what matters.

I admire your simple description of the methodology by which startups as well as established vendors “work the system” of analysts. It’s similar to describing nuclear power as a method by which water is heated to make steam so electricity is generated. It is a cynical view that I frankly wish was accurate, because if so we would be far richer than we actually are. The truth is far more complex.

Analyst firms do have some authority in the market today with vendors, but only if we (a) understand the market they’re in, (b) provide consistently good advice that they pay for (yep, free enterprise stuff) that has to be accurate at least most of the time or they find another place to get that advice (yep, there are other places to get it too, more free enterprise stuff) and (c) maintain strict neutrality in the process. If it appears to the cynical or inexperienced as price-fixing and monopolistic, I regret that. If the hours we are working to fulfill our commitments to vendors and clients alike are part of a monopoly, God help us if we ever make it to a competitive market for research and advisory services. :-/

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