Speculating on the golden goose

While the Borg are busy assimilating META, the rest of the industry is wondering what will happen in face of the Gartner juggernaut -and many like in this post are lamenting about the loss of an opinion. Some others are busy keeping an eye on Gartner, see this Register article on a KGC (unfortunately not deep-linkeable) article applying Gartner's usual M&A recommendations to this acquisition.

Since no one has actually got a clue of the exact reasons motives of Gartner to buy META (and probably not the borgs themselves) and we're all speculating, I would agree with Louise that one of the most interesting areas is what will happen with META Group Consulting (aka MGC).
MGC was the fastest growing practice of META, and they did a number of things that Gartner would not do, either for "ethical" reasons or else. Like profit margins for instance: Gartner is known to much prefer "easy" strategic consulting (bang 3 Gartner analysts in a room @ $10k or more / day and let them rip you apart) to more "tactical" projects, those that vendors really need.
We won't know for sure what will happen to MGC before April Fool Day (when the deal will be completed), but early indications are not in favour of keeping META's golden goose...