I really liked Matt Asay’s post on industry analysts. His primary point is that firms like Gartner and Forrester really aren’t that forward-looking. Matt says,

“…They tell an enterprise buyer from whom she should have purchased
software and hardware a few years ago, not where she should invest IT
dollars tomorrow. As an example, despite the massive influx of
open-source vendors in the enterprise, Gartner persists in believing that open source is years away from making a dent in the enterprise, and you’ll rarely find an open-source vendor in a Gartner Magic Quadrant.”

Gartner’s portals and collaboration summit I went to in Vegas last year (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3) really frustrated me because when open source was mentioned, it was spun primarily as a risky investment not worthy of the enterprise. My initial reaction was that firms like Gartner are threatened by open source because most open source projects will never pay the kind of money Gartner demands to have their software “reviewed” and included in the mystical quadrant. Matt’s post goes to a more fundamental issue which is that they just don’t get it.