Gartner Blogs directory improved 15 Jul 2009
Posted by InformationSpan in Insight services, ITasITis, Managing IT, Technorati.Tags: Analyst blogs, blogs, directory, Gartner
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I’ve finally implemented a long-planned improvement to the InformationSpan directory of Gartner analyst blogs. Actually, two improvements.
The first sounds simple but proved remarkably difficult to achieve. There are a small handful of Gartner bloggers who are not listed in Gartner’s own online directory of analysts. They are people like my friend Val Sribar, who are senior members of Gartner’s research management team and not “analysts” in the regular sense of the word. Or they might be new arrivals, who haven’t made it into Gartner’s online list yet.
Up to now, these individuals have had special mention at the foot of the “by name” page, and haven’t appeared in the directory of coverage areas at all. Well, that’s changed. They are now fully integrated into the main lists, with a neat little dagger indicating their status.
The second enhancement sounds complex but was much easier. The index of blogs by coverage area has now been split into three sections: Technical coverage (the part of Gartner that most of us look at); Industry verticals (the sectors for which Gartner has a focussed specific advisory service); and Management focus (which at the moment includes two areas: Gartner for Business Leaders, and the Small/Midsize Enterprise IT service). This split doesn’t exactly match Gartner’s own, but it makes sense to me. The three sections are still on the same page; just page down.
Also there are a small number of new blogs highlighted since the last update. The number of analysts blogging has pretty much reached its plateau, I think. I wonder if the joining rate permonth over the last couple of years would plot into a hype cycle shape?
Why not have a look at our Blog Index.
PS – for the technically minded, the implementation uses some arcane Excel coding to sort out the information into the order wanted. The new code vividly exemplifies Niklaus Wirth’s statement: there is no problem in computing that can’t be solved by adding another layer of indirection. Two layers, sometimes, here!
Gartner creates Business Continuity blog 8 May 2009
Posted by InformationSpan in Insight services, Tech Watch.Tags: Business Continuity, Gartner, Swine Flu
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Gartner recently added a new Business Continuity blog, categorised as Gartner Special Research. It contains advisories relating to the Swine Flu outbreak, which is a more serious issue in the US than it is yet in Europe. Like their other blogs, it’s on open access.
You won’t find it in their list of titled (topic-focussed) blogs, which followers here will know remains somewhat disorganised. Instead, and illogically, it’s been included in the Blog Network as if it were an individual analyst’s blog.
InformationSpan sorts these things out. There’s one new Gartner analyst on stream as well. Visit informationspan.com and click the link to our index of analyst blogs.
More Gartner Blogs and some under-the-cover changes 23 Apr 2009
Posted by InformationSpan in Insight services, Managing IT, Technorati.Tags: Analyst blogs, blog index, Gartner
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Another ten Gartner analysts have joined the Gartner Blog Network and I’ve updated my blog index to include them. For the first time, a couple of the new names are also new analysts, and these are indicated in the index.
There are a couple of other changes on the Gartner side too. Their Investment Services and Banking vertical coverage has been amalgamated, so the sole blogger in this area, Kristin Moyer, now appears under “Banking & Investment Services”.
And one of the new analysts, Richard Fouts, is working within Gartner’s business management service Gartner for Business Leaders. Gartner describe this as “reinvigorated” rather than “new”: it provides “business strategy and marketing insight for technology and service provider organizations” covering analyst relations, sales, product management & marketing, and market & competitive intelligence. I’m going to need to revamp the approach a little to ensure these additional areas get reflected in the topic index; at the moment, they don’t.
Click through to the blog index, and take it from there.
Oracle acquires Sun: what do the analysts say? 23 Apr 2009
Posted by InformationSpan in Insight services, ITasITis, Managing IT.Tags: AMR Research, Analyst blogs, analysts, Forrester, Gartner
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As the comments begin to settle down around Oracle’s latest blockbuster acquisition, let’s have a look at who reacted how quickly, and the quality of their comments.
There’s plenty of discussion of the basics: that Oracle is to acquire (“rescue”, according to some coverage) Sun Microsystems. The crown jewels are:
- the Solaris version of Unix, which Larry Ellison talked up and which is perhaps the most important platform for Oracle’s proprietary software portfolio. Relevant past acquisitions here include PeopleSoft/J D Edwards (Dec 2004) and Siebel (Sep 2005), both hard-fought battles
- Java, the basis for Oracle’s growing middleware business. BEA Systems was acquired in January last year.
- Sun hardware … it will be interesting to see what Oracle does with this, as an indicator of the company’s future direction
- Star Office and Open Office – there’s not much comment about these. But Ellison may well encourage them, the better to compete with Microsoft
- MySQL open source database, widely used by start-ups and web companies
- Definitively stopping a link-up of IBM and Sun
When I looked at coverage of the Satyam scandal, the questions were: who reacted first? Who has the most incisive coverage for the enterprise user? Who had the best accessible coverage?
But things have moved on, not least with Gartner’s entry to the blog movement. The major analysts had blog postings up pretty much on the day, and so did a range of other commentators. Some postings are very short and don’t do much more than register that the analyst had seen the news. But some have significant analysis, and I’d commend Darryl Plummer from Gartner, James Kobelius and Ray Wang from Forrester, and Bruce Richardson of AMR who all quickly began to explore the implications. Stefan Ried of Forrester waited a couple of days and then, after a call with Oracle, brought together some of his colleagues’ earlier comments so that’s a useful link.
And at this stage there is not much early stage formal research reporting. There are a couple of reports from the big two (Forrester and Gartner). Forrester haven’t disappointed as they did last time: the quality of accessible coverage in the blogs is high. Gartner’s blog coverage is more random; perhaps this is where Forrester’s approach to blogging, with topic-related rather than personal blogs, pays off. Then there were rapid initial research notes from Forrester and Gartner but not a great deal more.
As with Satyam, there’s no consensus about the future direction of this integration. The main disagreements are:
- will Oracle divest the hardware business, or leverage it? Significantly, the Oracle press resource talks about delivering “an integrated system—applications to disk”, not “applications to CPU”.
- will MySQL be used as a route to migrate more customers for Oracle’s database and then killed off? will it be actively supported? or will it be cut loose for the open source community to work with?
So perhaps the main conclusion for insight service users is that the pace and quality of fast-response comment to major events has significantly picked up. And that there were no real surprises about coverage – except that I discovered a new source (GigaOM) which had an incisive article – matching Forrester’s Kobelius for early considered analysis. That’s a source I’ll be watching in future.
Links:
• Oracle and Sun, Oracle press and information website
• Forrester: Oracle’s Sun Acquisition Is A Game Changer, 22 April, client research targetted at vendor strategy professionals (i.e. the IT supply side) but relevant to users too
• Gartner: Oracle/Sun Deal Will Change Competitive Landscape in IT, 22 April, client research, short but publicly available
• Our Full Analysis of the $7.4B Oracle-Sun Deal, GigaOM, 20 April
To see more of the coverage identified for this survey, click for items tagged in del.icio.us.
My Forrester blog index catches up 1 Apr 2009
Posted by InformationSpan in Insight services, Technorati.Tags: Analyst blogs, Forrester, Gartner
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A quick alert. I’ve finally caught up with my target of updating my index to Forrester’s analyst blogs. Not as urgent a job as keeping on top of Gartner’s because Forrester’s own index is structured by topic – they aren’t, mostly, individual analysts’ blogs – and the list is up to date on their own site.
The list is a little longer than it was in January, when I first put the page up. So I’ve moved to a two-page structure. When you go to the index you’ll see first the blogs which are relevant to enterprise IT; this does include some of the consumer and marketing oriented blogs, because there’s a strong IT interest in these areas. A second page links you to the marketing strategy blogs and those for the technology industry (that’s vendors, to you and me). But IT people should have a look there too; for example, there’s currently some discussion on Cloud issues.
inks:
• InformationSpan index to analyst blogs
• Forrester’s blog index
Insight service users: assess yourselves! 26 Feb 2009
Posted by InformationSpan in Insight services, Managing IT.Tags: Advisory, analysts, Forrester Research, Gartner, research
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InformationSpan helps enterprises develop and deliver value from their investment in analyst/research/advisory services (you can see why we coined the phrase “insight services”).
Our new online self-assessment enables you to see how far along the road you are. Visit us at informationspan.com and click the link in the news item, or on the Enterprise page; or visit http://tinyurl.com/bhmfvs.
Satyam: an analyst case study 5 Feb 2009
Posted by InformationSpan in Insight services, Managing IT, Technorati.Tags: AMR Research, Forrester Research, Gartner, response time, Satyam
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So who was first to react to the Satyam scandal? And who had, and continues to have, the most incisive comment for Satyam’s users and other heavily outsourced operations?
I’ve been catching up on commentary from the analysts, and doing a little research. Considering how important outsourcing is, from global enterprises down, it’s disappointing. There’s really limited coverage. You might find these notes interesting not just for themselves but for what they tell us about the speed with which the analyst community reacts.
Remember the timescale: the Satyam chairman’s resignation took place on 7th January. Who reacted first, and whose insights are the most actionable? I’m not looking at news coverage, but at advice and interpretation offered to enterprise users of insight services. Satyam’s customers include many of the largest global companies. What can this tell us about the insight services you rely on? And importantly, what’s available even if you’re not a client?
So here are the key analyst reactions and the timescales. I used Malcolm Ramsay’s specialist search engine at AllTheAnalysts to see what was out there.
First to react: AMR Research
First coverage: Satyam’s Woes Put India’s Services Industry in the Hot Seat, 7th Jan (client access)
Accessible coverage: First Thing Monday podcast, 9th Jan
Follow-up: Beware of the Satyam Ambulance-Chasers, 15 Jan (client access)
Focus: the future of Satyam. AMR expect Satyam to be acquired within 1-2 months for the sake of their client base.
Client advice (from the podcast): having to switch providers is very expensive for a client. It’s the people that matter; look for continuity. Don’t panic; the people will stay put in the current climate.
Best accessible coverage: Gartner
First coverage: Prepare for Aftereffects of Satyam Accounting Scandal, 2 page document, 8 Jan. Although a client research note, this document is available free through gartner.com. But you need an external search to find it
Accessible coverage: online documents and Gartner Voice podcast 12th Jan. But oddly, no blog coverage visible.
Follow-up: two subsequent short documents (accessible). One longer client-only document dated 9 Jan. Local event in Mumbai upcoming on 10 February
Focus: the broad implications for the global IT services industry. Gartner expect Satyam to cease to exist in its current form by “some time in 2010″ for this and other reasons. It will be crippled from development, so that its expertise will decline. It will be starting from scratch to rebuild client trust. But Satyam has Indian Government support offering some confidence for clients.
Client advice: look more deeply than just financial stability when selecting an outsourcing vendor
Disappointing: Forrester Research
First coverage: Satyam’s Fraud Leaves Clients In The Lurch, 8 Jan (client access)
Accessible coverage: none located, no coverage in the Forrester blogs
Follow-up: teleconference, 20 Jan (client access, available from archive)
Client advice: can’t be inferred from what’s visible
Others: Ovum
First coverage: The ‘mithyam’ (deception) behind Satyam, 19 Jan 2009
Accessible coverage: none found
Focus: the reputation of India’s IT industry (based on provider’s abstract)
Client advice: can’t be inferred from what’s visible
IDC
Coverage: The Satyam Saga: What Next for the Company, Its Customers, and “Outsourcing India? No specific date (just January); client access, 6 pages
Client advice: can’t be inferred from what’s visible
Celent of India published a report on Indian IT services firms on 29 January which appears to make no mention of Satyam’s troubles. No other services show coverage of the crisis to date.
Client conclusion
Forrester’s web conference, particularly, will be of value to clients and can be replayed; but lack of coverage in the blogs is disappointing. The Sourcing and Vendor Management blog has no entry since October.
AMR Research show up well in this, specialists that they are, and Gartner exhibit their strength in fast considered reaction. There are clear differences in the interpretation and advice they are giving, particularly in the timescale for Satyam to disappear in its current form and in the likelihood of staff attrition. Both offer some clear guidance: AMR is more sanguine of an acceptable short to medium term outcome, at least for Satyam customers.
And the learnings? In a sudden crisis like this one, where your exposure could be significant, find all the advice you can. Find your way to the openly accessible content. Look at the specialist insight services, and always at Gartner, even if you’re not a client. Weigh the opinions: they may vary widely. And in the end, make your own decision – not theirs!
Links:
• Prepare for Aftereffects of Satyam Accounting Scandal, Gartner, 8 Jan 2009
• Life after the Satyam scandal, Gartner Voice, 9 Jan 2009
• Satyam’s Woes, AMR Research, via First Thing Monday (click More and locate the title)
• AllTheAnalysts
Finding vendors: Magic Quadrants and so on 6 Jan 2009
Posted by InformationSpan in Insight services, Managing IT, Technorati.Tags: Forrester, Gartner, Insight services, Magic Quadrant, Sage Circle, Wave
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Carter Lusher of Sage Circle reports an interaction between Andreas Bitterer of Gartner and a smaller vendor who’s taken issue with coverage in a Magic Quadrant. Credit, as Carter says, to both parties for engaging in a public discussion about this.
If you’re a user IT organisation with a relevant subscription, you probably use the Magic Quadrant (or Forrester’s equivalent, the Wave) to assess the players in a particular marketplace. If so, it’s well worth reading this post to better understand these methodologies. It appeared over the holiday period, so you might have missed it.
Sage Circle looks at it from the vendor’s angle, for Analyst Relations professionals. Here’s a thought for the enterprise IT team.
If you are inclined to look at emerging or niche vendors, or at Open Source (the issue which triggered Carter’s posting), then the mainstream market assessments probably won’t see them, and the main insight providers probably won’t cover them. The same’s true if you are investigating a niche area. I was asked, once, to find a hosting service experienced with a specialised software product. In its own market area, this application was a leader; but it wasn’t exactly mainstream ERP! There was no analyst coverage at all, within our available subscriptions.
In this situation you can try three things.
First, find a niche insight provider which specifically covers the market, if there is one. Ask InformationSpan: we have the database, and the review is almost complete (I’ve got to “T”!), but one thing I do know now is that not all niches have this kind of specialist coverage.
Second, make your own assessment. Both Gartner and Forrester publish their criteria, though Forrester provide more complete details; if you’re in an area where there is no coverage then look at a related MQ or Wave for ideas what you ought to assess.
If you’re looking at niche vendors in a major area where there is coverage, remember that Forrester make available the full model including data and weightings. You can adjust the weightings to create your own Wave, and if some of those criteria aren’t of interest to you in relation to your niche interests, or you can’t either research or estimate them, then just zero-weight them. You can’t add data to a Wave, but you can work in parallel with it. And validate it with an analyst when you’ve done the work: they might well see something you’ve missed.
Third, you can ask the analyst to do custom research. Again, with a niche product there will be criteria they can’t assess – there won’t be a sizeable user community to ask questions of, for example. This may be useful for a niche product in a major area; in a specialist area it’s likely you’ll know more about it yourself and, because they’ll start from a lower base, it will be expensive. They may even say “no”. But they will work, so far as possible, to their standard methodology and this will make comparison easier; aside from not having to do all the work yourself!
Oh – and a Happy New Year! There’s plenty of talk about managing through the recession. I still like George Colony’s take: including, hire the smart MBAs who are not now going into finance!
Links:
• Vendor complains in a very public blog post about Gartner’s Data Integration Magic Quadrant Sage Circle, 29 Dec 2008
• Setting the Record Straight Andreas Bitterer, Gartner blog, 28 Dec 2008
• CIO best practices for thriving in a recession Counterintuitive, George Colony, Forrester Research, 24 Sep 2008
InformationSpan Report series launched 12 Nov 2008
Posted by InformationSpan in Insight services, Managing IT, Technorati.Tags: AMR Research, BI, BI Survey, Business Intelligence, Butler Group, Forrester, Gartner, IDC, IT Toolbox, OLAP Report, reports, Ventana Research
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InformationSpan has begun to create a series of survey reports which will look at Insight Services coverage of specific IT topic areas.
The first Report surveys insight services for Business Intelligence. Recent significant consolidation in the BI marketplace makes authoritative advice essential in this area: reports prior to mid 2007 are likely to be very dated. We review providers with known coverage in this area, from the InformationSpan database of over 400 providers, using our industry structure model for classification: global generalists; global specialists; local generalists; and niche providers.
You can view this first report for free: go to the website and click on the new tab labelled “InformationSpan Reports”. Even if BI isn’t your primary area, you might like to see the approach. Comments will be welcome here, particularly if you think I’ve missed something!
I’m planning one report a month from now on; current planned coverage includes the Emerging Technology agenda; Risk Management; and Merger & Acquisition Support. If you would like to influence this agenda, or commission a special report, do get in touch!
Once again, no other Links in this posting.
