Comments on: How not to use a Magic Quadrant http://blogs.gartner.com/lydia_leong/2009/06/25/how-not-to-use-a-magic-quadrant/ A member of the Gartner Blog Network Mon, 26 Dec 2011 04:43:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Lydia Leong http://blogs.gartner.com/lydia_leong/2009/06/25/how-not-to-use-a-magic-quadrant/comment-page-1/#comment-4099 Lydia Leong Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:02:22 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/lydia_leong/2009/06/25/how-not-to-use-a-magic-quadrant/#comment-4099 I think, looking at the MQ, that it doesn't just reflect size -- it also reflects the breadth of product portfolio and overall market presence. For instance, Rackspace and Terremark have been consistently highly placed for 5 years, even when both were small vendors. But you're right, the MQ is not designed to show feature breakdowns. That's why I'm building a critical capabilities note for cloud system infrastructure services -- because featureset is much more of a driver in cloud computing right now, whereas classically enterprise Web hosting hasn't had much genuine feature differentation, (the main differences in enterprise hosters have been service, sometimes driven by back-end technology but also sometimes driven by just raw human attention). I feel pretty strongly that Gartner clients doing vendor selection should do an analyst inquiry call rather than just relying on the written research. There's a ton of detail and color that simply doesn't fit well into the bullet-point format of the MQ, not to mention the usefulness of custom RFP / pricing / contract review. I think, looking at the MQ, that it doesn’t just reflect size — it also reflects the breadth of product portfolio and overall market presence. For instance, Rackspace and Terremark have been consistently highly placed for 5 years, even when both were small vendors.

But you’re right, the MQ is not designed to show feature breakdowns. That’s why I’m building a critical capabilities note for cloud system infrastructure services — because featureset is much more of a driver in cloud computing right now, whereas classically enterprise Web hosting hasn’t had much genuine feature differentation, (the main differences in enterprise hosters have been service, sometimes driven by back-end technology but also sometimes driven by just raw human attention).

I feel pretty strongly that Gartner clients doing vendor selection should do an analyst inquiry call rather than just relying on the written research. There’s a ton of detail and color that simply doesn’t fit well into the bullet-point format of the MQ, not to mention the usefulness of custom RFP / pricing / contract review.

]]> By: Garth Knudson http://blogs.gartner.com/lydia_leong/2009/06/25/how-not-to-use-a-magic-quadrant/comment-page-1/#comment-4089 Garth Knudson Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:49:30 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/lydia_leong/2009/06/25/how-not-to-use-a-magic-quadrant/#comment-4089 Lydia, thanks for the honesty. Gartner is good at distilling information into a bullet and a blurb. What I wish Gartner would do is create an actual capabilities matrix based on the MQ criteria. You probably have the beginnings of such a list, but becuase you don't deep dive into technology as far as I have seen you do not capture key details that would help clients select vendors based on capablities not size. Lydia, thanks for the honesty. Gartner is good at distilling information into a bullet and a blurb. What I wish Gartner would do is create an actual capabilities matrix based on the MQ criteria. You probably have the beginnings of such a list, but becuase you don’t deep dive into technology as far as I have seen you do not capture key details that would help clients select vendors based on capablities not size.

]]> By: Misunderstanding Magic Quadrants, MarketScopes, and More « SageCircle Blog http://blogs.gartner.com/lydia_leong/2009/06/25/how-not-to-use-a-magic-quadrant/comment-page-1/#comment-3052 Misunderstanding Magic Quadrants, MarketScopes, and More « SageCircle Blog Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:41:09 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/lydia_leong/2009/06/25/how-not-to-use-a-magic-quadrant/#comment-3052 [...] a week after Jim wrote his blog post, Gartner analyst Lydia Leong came out with her own post on How not to use a Magic Quadrant. Lydia’s post also focuses on educating research consumers about the way to use the MQ. Lydia [...] [...] a week after Jim wrote his blog post, Gartner analyst Lydia Leong came out with her own post on How not to use a Magic Quadrant. Lydia’s post also focuses on educating research consumers about the way to use the MQ. Lydia [...]

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