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Attendees and Gartner analysts and staff are posting new messages every few minutes.

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE:IT) announced that it will provide a webcast of its conference call to discuss its news release regarding the Company’s financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2008, which will be issued before the market opens on Thursday, February 5, 2009.

The call and webcast are scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on Thursday, February 5, 2009. Listeners can access the webcast live on the Internet at http://investor.gartner.com. A replay of the webcast will be available for approximately 90 days following the call.

Gartner, Inc. filed this Form 8-K with the U.S. SEC on January 8, 2009:

On January 8, 2009, Gartner, Inc. announced a reduction in its workforce of 117 employees as part of its efforts to manage operating expenses. The affected positions were spread across various functions and geographies, and consisted primarily of non-quota bearing and non-client facing functions. Notification to affected employees commenced on January 7, 2009 and is expected to be completed by January 12, 2009.

The Company committed to this action in December 2008, and as a result will incur pre-tax expenses of approximately $8.5 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008, related principally to cash severance costs for terminated employees. Despite these expenses, the Company expects to achieve its most recent full year 2008 projections for revenue, Normalized EBITDA, EPS from continuing operations, and operating cash flow. These projections are contained in Exhibit 99.1 to the Company’s Current Report on Form 8-K filed on October 30, 2008, which is available on the Company’s website at www.gartner.com under the “Investor Relations” link and at www.sec.gov.

Safe Harbor Statement

Statements contained in this Current Report on Form 8-K regarding the expected pre-tax expenses, the expected reduction in operating expenses, the anticipated timing of completion of the action, the growth and prospects of the business, the Company’s 2008 financial results and all other statements in this Report other than recitation of historical facts are forward-looking statements (as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). Such forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties; consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied thereby. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to ability to expand or even retain the Company’s customer base; ability to grow or even sustain revenue from individual customers; ability to attract and retain professional staff of research analysts and consultants upon whom the Company is dependent; ability to achieve and effectively manage growth; ability to pay the Company’s debt obligations; ability to achieve continued customer renewals and achieve new contract value, backlog and deferred revenue growth in light of competitive pressures; ability to carry out the Company’s strategic initiatives and manage associated costs; substantial competition from existing competitors and potential new competitors; additional risks associated with international operations including foreign currency fluctuations; the impact of restructuring and other charges on the Company’s businesses and operations; general economic conditions; and other risks listed from time to time in the Company’s reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings can be found on the Company’s website at www.gartner.com under the “Investor Relations” link and the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Forward-looking statements included herein speak only as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update such statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events or circumstances.

Jeff Golterman announced the first Gartner Quarterly Analyst Relations Teleconference for 2009. Save the date: Wednesday, January 28th. Look for details on the agenda and speakers the week of the 19th. The call is free to all marketing professionals involved in analyst relations. A replay should be available on the Gartner website shortly after the live call.

Jeff is GVP, Product Management in Gartner’s High Tech and Telecom Programs (HTTP). His team is directly responsible for the commercial success of Gartner for Business Leaders - Analyst Relations and Sales Pro as well as the Media, Strategic Analysis Session (SAS) and Core offerings for high-tech providers.

You can get these Gartner Analyst Relations program announcements by opting in for the free Gartner AR Newsletter.

From the department of harvesting navel lint:

Last year, companies included “Gartner Magic Quadrant” in more than 425 press releases distributed via BusinessWire.

By contrast, companies included “Forrester Wave” in more than 170 press releases distributed via BusinessWire last year.

I’m just saying… there’s a lot less change in the world than one might think.

The final Gartner Quarterly Analyst Relations Call for 2008 takes place Tuesday, December 9th and again on Wednesday, December 10th. A replay will be available shortly after the call. This is a free event. You do not need to be a paying Gartner client to participate.

Jeff Golterman, GVP High Tech & Telecom Programs, released the agenda and dial-in information. Topics include a community discussion on AR strategies for upcoming economic challenges, and updates on Gartner publications such as analyst bios and Magic Quadrant reprints.

In the past, only the most replay was available; I don’t know if this has changed. If not, Monday is your last day to listen to the 3rd quarter Analyst Relations call.

These quarterly AR calls are becoming more interesting and more valuable each quarter. Listen in if you manage outreach to Gartner analysts. Sign up for notices of Gartner AR events and more by opting into the Gartner AR Newsletter (www.gartnerinfo.com/arnewsletter).

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.

In an interview with AMR Research, Carter Lusher / Dave Eckert make a surprising assertion:

“Only one analyst firm in the IT industry has a dedicated and systematic research approach on emerging technologies. However, that one firm is the 900 pound gorilla Gartner.”

That’s not the view from where I sit.

It’s rare that an emerging technology surfaces first in Gartner research. And, Gartner’s hype cycle and cool vendor reports are hardly the end all, be all of systematic industry research on bleeding edge tech.

Emerging technologies almost always come to light first at one of the dozens of smaller, agile analyst firms offering in-depth insight into specific markets. It’s easy to see why. These analysts tend to have deeper roots in early stage technologies and markets. They are easier to get to. They have robust networks among developers, investors, other opinion leaders, and early adopters. I see it time and again, from semiconductors to Wi-Fi to 3G to graphics to collaboration software to managed services.

Gartner does a good job of discussing technologies that are ready for early enterprise adopters. They also do a good job on emerging tech providers ready for IPO or acquisition. That doesn’t make Gartner the first — or the only — analyst outfit with a dedicated focus on emerging technologies.

“Improving the customer experience is an important business priority. However, many organizations are failing to deliver on customer experience expectations due to channel inconsistencies, poor expectation setting, a reactive rather than proactive approach to service, and their engrained unwillingness to engage in more open, two-way customer relationships. Organizations that strive to overcome these challenges will gain notable competitive advantage over the next few years.”
– Jim Davies, Research Director, Gartner

Source: Convergys press release, dated today, on its new “relationship management approach”