Vendors and analysts
Posted by Felix Enescu on March 12th, 2007
Today Prashanth from CIO Weblog send me an Information Week article: “Credibility Of Analysts“.
Forrester, Gartner, IDC, and others insist their output is squeaky clean, yet they also rake in millions providing services to the very same companies they monitor, heavyweights like Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. Which leads to a question that continues to dog the research firms: How much influence do technology vendors have over their work?
The article analyses in depth the relations between technology vendors and analysts. Worth reading:
Technology vendors often will sign up for analyst firm services when they feel their market is poised for growth. Cyveillance in January signed on with Gartner to help understand how its software fits with the growing demand for IT security and regulatory compliance. “I also wanted to understand how a product we’re rolling out should be priced,” Bransford says. So IDC helps seed the market, Gartner helps price it, and both get paid for doing so. Is everyone comfortable with that?
March 14th, 2007 at 7:38 am
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. :-/
March 14th, 2007 at 11:03 am
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.