Monday 18 September 2006

Borg for hire?

It is a pre-conception that the Gartner Borg is has an anti-vendor stance.

Richard (Stiennon, ex. Gartner analyst now independent) pointed us to this case study:
AXA Financial Uses BI to Help Focus Its Sales Force

It is hosted on Gartner's product, the reprint being paid for by a vendor through the Gartner Connects programme. While the Borg does not write commissionned white papers, this certainly looks like like the real McCoy...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I heard that there were some legacy case study Meta white papers sold to vendors. This may be one of them. Gartner is fulfilling on those old Meta contracts. Too bad they didn't have an escape clause.

bitblue said...

Get real, people. "Legacy case study Meta white papers sold to vendors"? What are you smoking? There's no such thing.

Secondly, since when is AXA a vendor? Here's a hint: AXA does not stand for "Analytical X-Ray Applications"

Lastly, you guys (Aronaut & crew) should know what a case study is. BTW, Richard, you should, too. This isn't paid advertising and vendors do purchase reprint rights (for all kinds of documents) all the time, like in any media or publishing house.

Looks like there is nothing serious to report in the AR world these days, so you feel the need to warm up same lame old stories. Hey, Elvis has been seen at a Burger King near Paddington yesterday. Write about that!

ARonaut said...

Hey Andy, you're so naive....

1. AXA is not the customer, SAS is. Do you really think vendors can get Gartner to print such case studies if they don't have a commercial relationship with them?

2. The META paid-for bit is there. They did not even do the research themselves...

It's not an isolated case, check this as well...

bitblue said...

Thanks, man. Without your insight I would have never guessed that SAS is the customer. Geez.

Anyway, your response indicates that you don't know much about what's going on. Let me break it to you:

1. >> Do you really think vendors can get Gartner to print such case studies if they don't have a commercial relationship with them?

No vendor can get me to write any case study if I don't want to and see the value to our clients. Period. They can be a client or not, wave lots of cash in my face, I don't care. The commercial aspect is not relevant for any case study. Got that?

2. >> The META paid-for bit is there. They did not even do the research themselves...

Do you know what Consulting is? Howard did an audit as a consulting engagement for this benchmark. I'm sure it was paid for, since consultants not often work pro bono. It had nothing to do with research. So you think the vendor paid us loads for a quick and easy stamp of approval? And you're calling me naive? BTW, the other case is also a consulting engagement. If you would have read it, you would have seen it: "META indicates that the report was conducted and authored by META Group Consulting, not their analyst team."

Maybe you should more clearly distinguish between research and consulting. I have the feeling that you don't care much about those differences so you have it easier to do your bashing.