Time to upgrade open source perceptions of Gartner

Gartner has had a rocky relationship with open source in the past, but recent research suggests that its views on open source have evolved. It's therefore time for the open-source world's views on Gartner to evolve, too.

Gartner hasn't historically been much of a friend to open source. While Forrester, Redmonk, the 451 Group, IDC, and other analyst firms long ago began recording the rise of open source within enterprise computing, Gartner seemed to side with the proprietary vendors in steadfastly arguing that open source's impact was negligible.

This resulted in some suggesting that Gartner's research was simply a reflection of which companies paid it the most money (and recently netted the analyst firm a lawsuit).

I made similar accusations myself.

Gartner responded to such attacks, defending the integrity of its research. Yet its blind spot to open source seemed to persist.

Not anymore. Whatever the reason for the erstwhile overlooking of open source, Gartner analysts' current views on open source have changed, in some cases dramatically.

It used to be that open-source companies and projects never made it into Gartner's Magic Quadrant (MQ), which have tremendous power for, if somewhat limited utility to, enterprise buyers.

Now, you'll find that Gartner lists Drupal ("Drupal is in the Visionaries quadrant because of its use of the open source model to drive adoption and popularity, while providing enterprise services via organizations such as Acquia"), Liferay, and MindTouch in its newest "Social Software in the Workplace" MQ, while Alfresco, MySQL, JasperSoft, Pentaho, and others are listed in a variety of other MQs. (Disclosure: I work for Alfresco and am an adviser to MindTouch and JasperSoft.)

Gartner also recognizes the broad adoption of open source in the enterprise and how open source is affecting even proprietary software vendors.

This isn't to suggest that Gartner finally "gets it" because it's writing favorably about open source. In fact, some of Gartner's best, most interesting analysis is available for free on the blogs section of its Web site, not all of which is positive about open source.

It is, however, balanced and often quite insightful, particularly the work of Gartner analyst Brian Prentice.

Given all this, it's time for open sorcerers to stop using Gartner as a straw man for poor analysis on open source. This isn't helpful and, increasingly, it's not remotely accurate.

[cvaldes1831]

It's not just open source.

Gartner has a problem analyzing everything: Macs, smartphones, Crayola crayons, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Nobody should be listening to Gartner for guidance. Including technology journalists.

[Random_Walk]

The problem is, there's only one group of folks among vendors who actually pay Gartner, and open-source isn't among them (neither is Apple, which explains why they've been dissed pretty hard).

Gartner has been wrong (as a group) so many times it's almost an anti-bellwether. It's a common joke among the IT field that whatever Gartner says, expect/do the opposite.

Problem is, there are too many of the Dilbertesque "PHB"s out there who listen to everything Gartner says, costing untold amounts of money. Microsoft leans very heavily on Gartner's 'reporting' to justify itself, in spite of both being proven wrong multiple times over.

[pentest]

Gartner is crap, just because it has the crappy companies that you are involved in on a list doesn't change that fact.

[pcOxygen]

Gartner has already dug their own grave. They've made their bed ... now they can sleep in it.

[kojacked]

LOL! Can't win the beauty pagent? Cry foul on the judge!

[Random_Walk]

The judge was paid off. ;)

[umbrae]

Company I work for buys almost completely off Gartner MQ. I can say they a full of crap, and it is obviously someone is paying for this research as I am clueless as to why things are placed where they are. Of course, I am one of the few that understand how thing work technically and what it take to deploy and support them. As such MQ is just for idiots that know nothing about the subject matter and have alot of money to spend.

[Matt Asay]

Lots of companies depend on the MQ to whittle down purchasing choices. It's therefore very important that Gartner is recognizing open source as a rising force. It's not to make open source feel better. It's to help conservative organizations buy more open source.

[Random_Walk]

Heh - like Gartner is going to recognize a vendor or org that doesn't give it wads of cash... nice one!

[PeterVescuso]

With the Gartner example, Matt Asay points out another clear sign that we?re in the midst of a sea change when it comes to acceptance and adoption of open source software by enterprise organizations. The politics and us-versus-them arguments are giving way to pragmatic economic realities. Developers and businesses are using more open source software as part of their multi-source development processes because the efficiencies it provides helps them develop faster, better and more cost-effective software applications and solutions. I think Matt is right that Gartner is moving beyond their blind spot on open source. In their report on 'OSS Impact on Infrastructure Software' they estimated that in 2009 open source would have a $29.7 billion impact on the infrastructure market, where 'impact' is defined as the displacement of revenue.

[mcasters]

@kojacked : I couldn't have put it better myself :-)

You gotta love vendors that attack Gartner because they can't be part of their elite club.
What is it that they want: in or out?

In the space that I work in (open source BI) we saw plenty of rants from frustrated companies too. Well it's quite simple: if the technology is as disruptive as you say it is and if it is as good as you say it is, it will end up in the magical quadrant sooner rather than later.

Also, it doesn't take a genius to realize that accusing Gartner of being corrupt or even filing lawsuits is not going to do all that much good. I would rather spend my time improving the open source product itself.

> It's not to make open source feel better. It's to help conservative organizations buy more open source.

I have to disagree Matt. Gartner has seen many technological waves come and go over the course of many decades. Why would they need to help promote open source? Is this part of their corporate goal perhaps? I don't think so. Their recognition of Open Source as a rising force is spot on. I don't think they need to do anything else... until the change has actually taken place and until the revenues are there.

Matt

[andrew_dailey]

Open source has it's place - however it's commercial success, as measured in top line revenues and bottom line profits, has yet to be proven...http://mgiresearch.typepad.com/tech_industry_analysis/open-source/