Why No One Seems to Care that Gartner Follows No Research Rules

ByPrimary Researcher

Executive Summary

  • Gartner and the other major IT analysts follow no research rules.
  • However, very few people appear to care, and we look at why this is the case.

Video Introduction: Why No One Seems to Care that Gartner Follows No Research Rules

Text Introduction (Skip if You Watched the Video)

At Brightwork Research and Analysis, we have the most coverage of Gartner published anywhere. We cover in great detail how the company ignores all known research rules. However, what is curious is that so much of Gartner’s lack of adherence to research rules and its undeniable corruption is known by many. What is curious is that so few people seem to care. You will learn about the IT industry’s response to Gartner’s corruption.

Our References for This Article

If you want to see our references for this article and other related Brightwork articles, see this link.

Notice of Lack of Financial Bias: You are reading one of the only independent sources on Gartner. If you look at the information software vendors or consulting firms provide about Gartner, it is exclusively about using Gartner to help them sell software or consulting services. None of these sources care that Gartner is a faux research entity that makes up its findings and has massive financial conflicts. The IT industry is generally petrified of Gartner and only publishes complementary information about them. The article below is very different.

  • First, it is published by a research entity, not an unreliable software vendor or consulting firm that has no idea what research is. 
  • Second, no one paid for this article to be written, and it is not pretending to inform you while being rigged to sell you software or consulting services as a vendor or consulting firm that shares their ranking in some Gartner report. Unlike nearly every other article you will find from Google on this topic, it has had no input from any company's marketing or sales department. 

Lack of Interest in Shared Articles on a Lack of Standards in Private Research

I shared the article How Common is Research & IP Theft in IT?, on LinkedIn on August 30th of 2020.

The lack of interest in this article share was instructive.

After three days, it now seems likely to only break around 2000 views and six likes. This is one of my least popular shares ever on LinkedIn.

Lack of Concern for Gartner’s Lack of Research Standards

If we look at people who will throw around Gartner MQs but have no idea that Gartner follows no research rules — or uses references, or does not disclose income sources — we should not be surprised that most of my contacts also don’t care about widespread research IP theft.

How can research be published that lacks references and be accepted?

The idea that private research is highly corrupted is apparently an incredibly boring topic. I wonder how much interest in my previous articles on Gartner has just been from vendors — who don’t care about research either but have felt disempowered because they have not had enough money to buy off Gartner. This is because I have never once had an employee of a large vendor complain about Gartner.

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Conclusion

Roughly speaking, very few people care that Gartner or Forrester, or IDC follow no research rules. If we look at Gartner and other analysts’ opinions, we can break it down as follows.

  1. Employees of Gartner, etc..: Make their income from Gartner and company, and so do not let the truth get out. Benefit from their prestigious jobs.
  2. Consulting Firms: Mostly aligned with the largest vendors, so support Gartner and company.
  3. Large Vendors: Can afford to buy the most influence with Gartner, so appreciate their high rankings.
  4. Small Vendors: Suffer in the rankings, so do not like Gartner, but cannot speak out publicly due to a fear of Gartner and company.
  5. Buyers: Most corporate buyers of research don’t know anything about research. And the vast majority don’t care if the research is accurate as they want approval to make safe purchases.

This means that there are extremely few individuals who care about the lack of research quality in enterprise software, and far fewer can say anything about it.