This is a great idea, James. Shall I set up a wiki? Seems a good way to go.

Besides enterprise technologists and their providers, this will be useful for analysts too.

I agree with points Alan made in his comment. This business model seems difficult for some people to grasp. Plus, there is some natural uncertainty as to the client experience — whether all research is free, whether there is an expectation for contributing back to the research community as in open source code (as if…).

A guide to the companies comparing their implementations would be a good supplement to the individual explanations in the wild. I still refer people to RedMonk posts like this one for an intro, and lately also to Brenda’s Elemental Links launch, as a good case in point.

Some other people I’d like to tag to contribute to the project would be Dana Gardner, the mwd Neils, and the analyst who sizes the largest analysts and trends buffeting them, Louise Garnett.

There are many other analysts engaged in open source analysis of various sorts in various disciplines — networking, security, etc. If we mandate use of a creative commons license or similar mechanism, then exclusion is simple. Good points for discussion, exploration.

Richard Stiennon raises an interesting point in his Threat Chaos post, Finding Cool Companies: should analysts who blog at online media networks — in this case, ZDNet — be given media passes to competitor’s events — in this case, Gartner Symposium? I don’t think so, but it does raise an amusing question of ethics.

Stiennon, a former Gartner analyst, recently launched an independent research and advisory venture of his own, IT Harvest. However, he blogs at ZDNet, along with analyst blogger buddies like Dana Gardner and Joe McKendrick.

Now, Stiennon’s attempt at getting a Gartner press pass was probably more hijinks than not. But consider this: Lots of analysts blog at various media sites. What happens if analysts take to the habit of introducing themselves as bloggers OR as analysts depending on what’s most convenient, or who they happen to be contacting at an organization, or … ?