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Tech Company Sues Gartner Because It Doesn't Like How Gartner Placed It In Its Magic Quadrant
from the hello-first-amendment dept
While I'm no fan of Gartner, and tend to think its analysis is pretty weak in many cases, a recent lawsuit filed by ZL Technologies, because ZL doesn't like how Gartner ranked it in Gartner's famous "magic quadrant" analysis, is pretty silly, and hopefully will get thrown out quickly. Gartner has every right to rank companies as it sees fit -- just as courts have noted that Google has every right to rank websites as it sees fit. Even if there are questions about the integrity of Gartner's rankings, I don't see how that's a legal issue at all. All it might do is call into question the value of relying on Gartner's ranking system. But that's a business issue, not a legal one. The court will hopefully toss this lawsuit out quickly on First Amendment grounds, and let Gartner go on pushing out magic quadrants, no matter how flawed they might be.
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gartner's pretty shady
I don't like them. lots of shady/suspicious things going on, and yet lots of IT groups quote gartner like it's 100 % factual analysis, resulting in a lot of MS business and other shady companies.
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Actually, it hits sort of the problems the FTC is getting worried about: Gartner's revenues are often from the very vendors they rank. As the article states, it may not be an individual employee who feels pressured, but perhaps on a more systematic level, to the company as a whole.
An example might be that more review time / rankings are made for companies that also buy advertising. It might not be intentional, but rather a question of knowing who to call, access, contact, whatever.
It is a questionable lawsuit perhaps, but the questions raised seem very topical this week.
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This is NOTHING like page ranking
This case has a lot of merit, unlike the Google page rank case. Google's page ranking does not purport to indicate a company's performance or potential.
Gartner's flawed "magic squares" is equivalant to speaking poorly about a company's performance/potential and by doing so with a "scientific analysis" method behind it this presents the company's ranking in a seemingly "factual" manner, not just the OPINION of Gartner. That is the exact definition of slander, no matter how creatively presented.
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Is this the same Gartner that years ago said SCO had a good case and cheered them on? It is suprising that anyone takes Gartner seriously. I dont think I'll ever have to pay the $699
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Wasn't sure if I was going to make a comment on this one..
So I read over all four legal arguments, besides ZL Technologies filings sounding more like a persuasive sales pitch 'our product is so much better than the Symantec one', I kept trying to find where Gartner had presented actual facts, the basis for every complaint within the suit. Instead of facts I see a large number of subjective arguments attempting to state how much better ZL Technologies is to Symantec's, but how that translates into Gartner ranking ZL's product in a niche category and because of this ranking ZL cannot effectively compete against Symantec is somehow the liability of Gartner is beyond me?
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I'd like to sure gartner for being stupid.
One more "The datacenter is dead, long live the cloud!" BS "reports" and I might just do it. Gartner doesn't help and I don't know one local CIO who even gives two shits about what they say.
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