Office of the Ombudsman

Yesterday a vendor tweeted, “New Question, how many Software Vendors in the Wave and Quadrant are not clients of Gartner and Forrester?” We can’t speak for anyone else, but Gartner’s answer is that usually most, but not all, vendors in Magic Quadrants are Gartner clients in one way or another – such as exhibiting at [...]

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Recently, a vendor questioned the integrity of a piece of research, claiming that Gartner hired one of the contributing analysts from his competitor. We investigated the issue and didn’t find any evidence of bias, but it is reasonable to ask, “How does Gartner ensure that a new analyst hired from a vendor is not biased?” [...]

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A vendor asked if we had a formal procedure that analysts follow to check user references provided by vendors and was specifically interested in whether analysts are obligated to contact the companies that the vendors provide as references. Analysts are not obligated to ask for references when creating any type of document, but they often [...]

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An analyst called the other day and told us that a vendor client called her asking some questions about a specific end-user client — did she know the CIO, was she aware of their IT strategy, did she know whose equipment they had installed. Immediately this analyst became suspicious that the vendor was fishing for [...]

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We got a call from a vendor client who complained that an analyst who authored a report recently published by Gartner was obviously “against” this vendor. The client questioned why we would allow him to get away with this. The answer is he didn’t get away with it. Gartner published opinions are just that: Gartner opinions. They [...]

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An analyst called and said she’d been asked by a vendor client to attend its “user group” meeting and present an award to the end user that this vendor had determined had the most advanced implementation of its product. My team declined this request, as it could have looked like an endorsement by that analyst [...]

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An analyst joined Gartner from an IT Services company but his “coverage area” was not at all related to IT Services. About a year later, his coverage area changed and he is now covering IT Services. He asked me if he had to sell his stock in his former employer’s company. The answer is yes. [...]

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While I’m at Symposium, I thought it might be helpful to share the rules that Gartner has in place to ensure that Gartner’s research positions and event activities remain separate and distinct from vendor marketing activities. At Gartner events more than anywhere else, analysts and vendors intermix, so it’s imperative that all Gartner clients understand [...]

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A vendor client of Gartner had a full-day session with an analyst where the vendor presented its detailed upcoming product plans and got lots of feedback from this analyst (Gartner calls it “SAS” – or Strategic Advisory Services). Two weeks later, the analyst announced that he was leaving Gartner to join a major competitor of [...]

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Shortly after Gartner first launched the Office of the Ombudsman, the Office also started a blog, with the idea of being completely transparent about the issues of objectivity, completeness and accuracy that cross our desks every day. It sounded good “on paper,” but many issues turned out to be so sensitive and potentially explosive in [...]

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