Most vendors that subscribe to Gartner are being offered expanded services. Their proposed fees are also growing, often by 50%, 100% or 150%. We have observed some common tactics and experiences within its client base. However, the central pressures are not in dealing with Gartner: the severe difficulty for AR directors and other Gartner clients…
My colleague Ivana Lazovic has been leading some fascinating research to see on which geographies analysts seem to be focusing their work. As you can imagine, it’s sort of question that some analysts won’t give a straight answer to. They might say that their research is global, or that it has no geographical aspect. Luckily,…
Longhaus has written an interesting article on the closure of Gartner’s consulting business in Australia, which touches on a real interest of mine: price elasticity. I’m drafting something on that, and on the issues of how to negotiate with Gartner on rising prices, for after I return from Forrester’s IT Forum here in Edinburgh. In…
Hitachi Data Systems is the firm that has shown the greatest increase in profile this month in the Lighthouse Systems Index. The firm has jumped 7 positions as analysts consider some of the new products that the firm is launching such as the Universal Storage Platform V and Hitachi Content Archive Platform 2.0. Network Appliance…
During a recent blog post discussing what many are referring to as open source analysts, I made some comments about one specific company, Freeform Dynamics, that with hindsight could have been interpreted as calling into the question the integrity and objectivity of its research. Following an exchange with the company, I would like to make…
There’s always a lot of interest in best practices for analyst-vendor briefings. Sadly, everyone has their own partial view, and sometimes it’s hard to work out the things that work right for you, but that might not work out for someone else. What works in Canada may not work in China (as we’ll be discussing…
Analyst firms find that the Arab world can be a very effective route into Africa more broadly — if analysts can respond to the different customer demand across those countries. Initially, of course, the money has been in more market research work. However, Lighthouse’s feel is that there’s an opportunity for analysts to also ramp…
The services firm with the biggest increase in profile in worldwide analyst research has been a remarkable year on year rise of 9 positions in the Lighthouse Services Index: Orange Business Services. The business previously known as Equant has been ranked as a leader in the Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for 2006 Western European Mobile Service…