Monday 3 July 2006

Ovum targets vendors

Ovum, which has recently IPO'ed (read this) is buying
Summit Strategies, a US firm doing business mostly with IT vendors (consulting and commissionned white papers).

Ovum had already forayed across the pond with the RHK purchase, however this time they're targeting IT vendors and not IT users: although Ovum is indeed selling research and advisory services (RAS, in plain English consulting days and access to a research library) it does not typically accepts commissionned white papers from vendors -which is Summit's business.
It will be interesting to see how Ovum deals with the integrity issue (for memory, Gartner killed META Group's white papers offering when it took it over).

Bottom line: Ducan seems to think Ovum is doing well but
we still are reserved as to whether they are capable to position themselves as a credible alternative to the Gartner Borg outside a few markets such as telcos.

2 comments:

alan pelz-sharpe said...

As an ex Ovumite myself (VP North America) - I think that they are doing the right thing by buying market presence and capability in the US. It just doesn't work trying to do so oganically (I have the bruises to prove it).

Summit probably isn't a bad fit in terms of personalities - and also in that the IT side of Ovum is often overshadowed by the Telcom strength (particularly in the US) so this builds some bulk and status.

Whether Ovum can position as an alternative to the Borg - I doubt it. But Ovum should for Telecom players particularly be number one or two choice everytime, and the IT research in particular areas is top notch - but lacks breadth, so hopefully this will go some way to fixing that. I hope there will be more acquistions, AMR and Burton have always looked a good fit as has Yankee. All of which have their strengths but lack the weight to really carve into Gartner territory.

The biggest question will be if Summit continues to write White Papers - always a very touchy topic at Ovum. Officially Ovum does not do White Papers, and many analysts are passionate that they should never do so either.

Anonymous said...

Judging from the volume of comments the AR World has been rocked speechless by this bold and daring move by Ovum :-0