Gartner Quadrant

Gartner is the new IBM. Slow. Extremely cautious. No one gets fired for using them.

I was at a partner presentation yesterday, and what do you think was the first thing he explained? Yup, he explained why they weren't in the Gartner quadrant.

I had a flashback to when I sold for a cybersecurity for a company that was not in the Gartner quadrant. Every single meeting started with my perfected pitch as to why we were not in the quadrant. Exhausting.

It is well understood that Gartner is a pay-to-play technology research firm and all of the others are too, in one way or another. Minimum for Gartner is $100,00 and goes into the millions of dollars. Sometimes it is a product technology or feature (or lack thereof) that is not deemed worthy by Gartner. The public cloud was still fairly new at the time, and the cybersecurity company I worked for specialized in securing it. Arguably, we were the best /only at that time.

We fought with Gartner for years of multiple on-site meetings before we were finally put into the quadrant. Our technology didn't change in that timeframe, so what did? Either companies pay a great deal to be in the Gartner quadrant, or they find another firm that will put them in their research like my company did. There are dozens like Forrester, Info-Tech, IDG, and so on. Someone will put you into their quadrant.

You should have a healthy skepticism about recommendations by technology research firms. There are often solutions not in the Gartner quadrant that are a far better fit for your organization than those found in the quadrant. Using Gartner, or Google searches for "Top 10" anything that favors the largest companies with the best SEO is likely causing you to miss hidden gems.

Let's talk.

david@cyber8technology.com