Tony Law (ITasITis blog) was in touch today, following up on his very first contribution here (that head-to-head competitors to Gartner’s Hype Cycle report include Forrester Research, with their TechRadar reports). He’s just posted a comparative assessment of TechRadar and Hype Cycle. Start-ups, VCs and enterprise early adopters will appreciate the comparison. Check it out. Well done.

The only point I would add to Tony’s analysis, is take care if you decide to track TechRadar reports via Google/RSS/Technorati alerts. Despite the Forrester mark tacked onto “TechRadar,” you’ll need to filter out monster results pointing to Future media’s consumer tech news and review site, TechRadar.com.

The report he evaluates, “Forrester TechRadar(TM): The Extended Supply Chain Application Ecosystem, Q2 2008,” lists at $279. I would compare to current Gartner Hype Cycle pricing, but their public site is down until tomorrow.

BTW, Tony is a scholar and a gentleman in my eyes. He made Tekrati history last month, by becoming the first person to send me a detailed assessment of the free Tekrati firms directory — including some outdated links, links/nomenclature we disagree on, and links/companies I hadn’t heard of.

This week, Gartner and Forrester are announcing financial results. The announcements should shed more light on their transition to peer-council and roles-based packaging, pricing, and structural alignments.

Each company is executing the transition differently. Forrester is moving faster and making sweeping, comprehensive changes. Gartner is transitioning more slowly, rolling out changes in more gradual steps, and creating an “evolutionary” experience for customers. They seem to be in a dead heat in transferring the concepts to their events businesses.

Against this backdrop, the mothership of peer-driven roles-based research and consulting — the Corporate Executive Board — today announced mixed results. CEB fell short of expectations for 4Q 2007 growth in contract value. The growth was just above 10%. However, other CEB news speaks to why its model is so attractive to Wall Street: more than 90% customer retention for the year, impressive expansion into new international and mid-sized enterprise markets, service introductions tracking rapidly emerging opportunities.

Some say Wall Street prodded Gartner and Forrester into embracing CEB’s peer councils and role-based research. That sounds reasonable, but that’s the past.

Today, the change is well underway. It’s high time we see if the CEB model can teach the old dogs some new tricks.

I couldn’t help but notice that word of eroding Gartner influence has not reached the editorial offices at Computerworld. Gregg Keizer’s piece on Leopard security cites Rich Mogull as “a security consultant and former Gartner Inc. analyst.” Gartner, not Securosis, got the outbound link.

It’s tempting to brush this aside, joking that Rich has formally joined the venerable ranks of used to be’s, like Prince (used to be Prince) and Al Gore (used to be the next president of the United States).

However, that one simple phrase — citing Gartner, omitting Securosis — reflects the difficulty of establishing credibility as an independent analyst or, in Rich’s case, consultant.

The influence of the independent analysts has been a point of conversation across a handful of analyst and AR blogs this week. My vote for the most insightful post goes to RedMonk Stephen O’Grady, Burning the influence straw man.

Update Nov 5: Ferran Rodenas wrote another excellent commentary on modern analyst influence at SDLC Blog.

I’ve played a bit with the free Compete site analytics tool, motivated into action by another Compete service coming out of beta this week. Website analytics is one indicator of the popularity — and hence, influence — of industry analyst companies, based on their public-facing websites.

Compete caught my eye because it claims to “triangulate” user-generated content from its own army of cookie-carriers with info from service providers and other sources. Sounds good, doesn’t it? It addresses one of my concerns with Alexa — its limited approach to statistics-gathering.

I tried this simple query, comparing Forrester, Gartner and Corporate Executive Board. Compete shows Forrester far ahead of Gartner — in visits, people, engagement, etc. The gap is 2:1 or higher, on several of the metrics. Overall, Forrester has a 10,000-point lead on Gartner in ranking against the top 1 million websites. Compete hadn’t gathered enough data on CEB.

For comparison, here’s the same query on Alexa.

So, is Forrester.com really wiping the floor with Gartner.com? I’m not so sure.

We each need to draw our own conclusions about the accuracy of Compete, just as we did with Alexa and other user-generated metrics. What’s great is that we’re being given more and more choices in analytics, complete with well-designed features, speedy response times, easy exports — and the lowest possible price.

The Knowledge Capital Group has announced that Gideon Gartner, the founder of Gartner, Soundview, and GIGA Information Group, will be a featured speaker at the KCG Connects event. This event, designed for people who want to learn about analyst relations, coincides with the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando in October.

Personally, I am pleased to see this. I am put off by the way KCG describes the Gartner company founding and early days in their analyst relations handbook. This event presents an opportunity to set the record straight(er) and more importantly, to spark compelling discussions about the industry analyst business.

IMHO, Gideon is well within his rights to say that he brought dramatic innovation to the analyst business in 1979 with the founding of Gartner, and again with the founding of GIGA. His recall is in marked contrast to the current Gartner corporate claim:

This year marks the 26th anniversary of Gartner and the founding of our industry. - Gartner, Inc. Investor Relations website

‘Founding of our industry’? First, you have to ask: Isn’t this the sort of self-serving historical revisionism Gartner is supposed to expose? Then you have to ask: Why does Gartner fail to recognize the importance of its one-time role as a disruptive innovator within this (pre-existing) industry? Gartner making this statement is akin to Google announcing that they founded the search market, or Twitter claiming the invention of IM.

Back on point: Last May, Gideon Gartner enthralled a few hundred analysts, consultants and others for an evening at the Computer History Museum. His business insights were inspirational to all types of high tech entrepreneurs at the event, in addition to those of us clustered in and around the IT industry research and advisory business. So, while you should not book this KCG event to try to get Gideon to invest in your company, you should find him an astute advisor and innovator thinker when it comes to business strategy — and the highlight of a full day of AR 101.

Do not assume that Mr. Gartner’s participation in the KCG event, means similar participation in the Gartner Symposium. Possible, but certainly not inevitable. Despite the example of statesmanship set by Jamie Lewis and Craig Burton at this year’s Catalyst, your best options for buttonholing Mr. Gartner may just be KCG Connects or the next TED.

Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey this week shines its Tech Editorial spotlight on the Gartner Magic Quadrant. The live teleconference takes place tomorrow at 4:00 pm EST, 1:00 pm PST. I’m on the show, along with Carter Lusher, director of analyst relations at HP, and a Gartner spokesperson TBA, and of course, the outspoken Sam Whitmore and his SWMS clients. As usual, this group has compiled an interesting list of questions and discussion points, including which parts of the MQ get the most readership, how do I get my client onto one, how do I get my client off of one.

I characterize the Magic Quadrant as the most reviled form of industry analyst research being published anywhere on the planet today. One of the main reasons it is so deeply hated is that it is so deeply loved. Much of the intense loathing that the MQ evokes is a direct response to its popularity with IT vendors. Check it out:

• The term “magic quadrant” was included in more than 400 press releases distributed through Business Wire during the last 12 months
• Google finds about 757,000 web pages including the words Gartner and “magic quadrant”, and that’s limiting results to web pages first seen within the last 12 months and excluding all results from the gartner.com domain

Everyone’s got an opinion on what to do about Magic Quadrants, especially the analyst relations consultants and those who believe they are AR experts whether or not they have ever actually executed on analyst relations themselves. Gartner analysts are a good case in point. Many Gartner analysts make buckets of cash from the Magic Quadrant long after they leave Gartner employment, by providing MQ training, consulting, project management, insider tips, whitepapers, and related expertise ad nauseum.

We’ll see what opinions pop up tomorrow.

Lots of very smart people like to point out what’s wrong with the industry analyst business. Yet, few engage in a constructive conversation about what it’s going to take to revitalize the industry analyst business — so that it plays a more valuable link in the IT procurement chain going forward. Chanting lies-damn-lies won’t do the trick. To foster a more useful and informed public debate, I’m supporting a new speaker series at the Computer History Museum. Here’s some insight into my thinking, and my personal thank you to some inspiring individuals and organizations also helping to promote this event, albeit each for their own reasons.

To recap the CHM event: The Computer History Museum is presenting Gideon Gartner, in conversation with Neill Brownstein, on May 15th. It’s free; a $10 donation at the door is suggested (if not a CHM member). Find more information and register at the CHM website.

Recently, I surprised James Governor at RedMonk by pointing out that I see many parallels between RedMonk today and Gartner’s early days. If you know him, you can guess just how pleased he was. But here’s my point: as a company, Gartner was a innovator and a disruptor in the industry analyst marketplace in the early 1980s. It changed the rules about information and advisory delivery, sales models, business culture, and more. Gartner was not the only innovative company at the time, nor was it the last. However, many its innovations became standard practices. Most of the analyst companies we see today are interpretations of this earlier period of innovation — despite the fact that as early as 1995, Gideon Gartner himself characterized the 1980s business model as outdated and out of sync with the market.

That, in a nutshell, is why this Computer History Museum speaker series is worthwhile. It provides an opportunity to hear personal insights and stories about a successful cycle of innovation — including the challenges, wins, frustrations. It’s an opportunity to understand the human story behind what it took to disrupt and innovate. What could have been done differently? What will it take to reinvent the analyst business again, today or in the future?

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The Computer History Museum invites you to attend a special event next week, when they present industry analyst marketplace pioneer Gideon Gartner, in conversation with venture capitalist Neill Brownstein. Part of the CHM Presents speaker series, the evening offers a rare opportunity to hear Mr. Gartner share candid and personal insights on the rise of IT industry analysts. The talk takes place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, USA, starting at 6:30 pm. Free, suggested $10 donation at the door.

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Today, IT industry analysts hold sway as global intermediaries between technologists and business, media, governments, universities and investors. Yet, there was a time when the industry analysts were a group of rebellious start-ups, bent on reinventing conventional industry intelligence services for computer buyers, investors and manufacturers. Join the Computer History Museum on Tuesday, May 15th at 6:30 PM as it presents a special evening of candid and personal insights on the rise of the industry analysts from industry analyst marketplace pioneer Gideon Gartner. The event takes place at the Computer History Museum, 1401 N. Shoreline Boulevard, Mountain View, CA. Free. Suggested donation of $10 at the door. Advanced registration is strongly advised.

By David Rossiter, guest columnist. Summary: The IIAR has launched a new website, offering members access to an AR job shop, discussion forums, a calendar of training courses and events, as well as a library. In addition, Gartner’s Peter Sondergaard and Aaron Yaverski will address the March IIAR meeting.

“Update on the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations”

There’s been a lot going on at the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations recently so it seemed an appropriate time for a quick update.

As you may have seen, we now have a website (www.analystrelations. org). This contains information and news on the Institute as well as various sections for members. These include an AR job shop, discussion forums, a calendar of training courses and events, as well as a library that contains (among other things) ‘best practice’ whitepapers and analyst firm research agendas and team directories. (Hat tip to Tekrati for providing the newsfeed we use on our homepage).

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