Ovum breaks the iPod cellphone embargo?

The New York Times is carrying a story that suggested to some people, including me, that Ovum had broken the embargo on Motorola's iPod phone. Our initial guess was that one of the firms involved forgot to ask for an NDA when briefing Ovum's Roger Entner. Our reasoning was that Entner, a really seasoned analyst, would never do anything he had agreed not to do. So the most likely thing was that someone from the companies involved had briefed him, but not told him about an embargo.

Boy, were we wrong. Sorry Roger.

This is how we made our mistake. Since Apple hides from analysts, and Motorola's AR seems highly professional, our money was on Cingular Wireless as the guilty party - and not only because Entner followed that firm while at Yankee. Cingular's top managers have always fought shy of the analysts. Rather than putting serious effort into AR, they gave AR as an extra job to the firm's team of media relations directors but without giving them the money, time, power or people needed to succeed. So we through they were the folk most likely to make the mistake.

And we also thought it would be a vendor's mistake because we also knew that Entner would not have broken an NDA or embargo he had agreed to. While Entner only arrived in Ovum's Boston office in April, he knows the rules - having earlier worked at Yankee. Ovum's sales and marketing people will be delighted to have made the New York Times -- and around 400 other papers worldwide -- all from one story.

In fact, we were wrong. As Roger explained to us, he wasn't briefed by any of the firms involved. Needless to say, he didn't break any NDAs or embargos (breaking an embargo you have not agreed to or even been told about -- that's a different issue). He obtained the information independently (maybe from John Sun's blog) and then the NYT reported it.

What the media did was to turn that into a news storm, focusing on the fact that the NYT had scooped the vendors. Unlike my thoughtful co-authors on ARmadgeddon, I am error-prone and jumped to the simplest explanation I could think of and I was wrong: not only factually but also professionally. My deepest apologies to Roger and the team at Cingular (you're back on my Christmas card list).

But all of this makes me want to ask another question: neither Apple, Motorola nor Cingular have briefed Entner about the biggest thing of the year?? After he's in 400 stories discussing their product?? What going on? Guys, you wanna borrow my phone?

P.S. An obvious solution here, borrowing from the open scene of The Matrix. Mail an iPod phone to Entner, with only your number in the address book, and then wait...

Redmonk: how to brief analysts

James explains "On How To Brief Analysts what we are, and expect". Well, it's less detailed than his maxifesto but common sense doesn't hurt :-)

So, an analyst briefing is (should) a two-way conversation (otherwise it's called a press conference).
He's also got an interesting concept of analysis as a conversation (as opposed to "Claudia Schiffer analysts"): to let it happen, keep your decks short...

Useful reminder...

Top furl entries

Here are our top furl entries, by number of views:

• Analyst Equity: Heard in a San Jose boardroom
• Valley View Ventures / Wow, Customers are saying that? Making Sense of Survey Research
• Gartner Watch: Lend me your watch and I'll tell you the time
• Outsell Now: Partnerships, Partnerships, and Reach, Reach, Reach
• Forrester's GigaWorld IT Forum Sells Out, Attracts Record Number Of Attendees Tekrati Research News
• Forrester Wave(TM)
• Give 'em all something - we need to sell reprints
• Computerworld Ovum hatches plot to fill Meta void
• Ovum Strengthens Global Team Tekrati Research News
• Valley View Ventures / IT Industry Analysis : Flying Upside Down without Getting Dizzy
• Valley View Ventures / Analyst objectivity
• Analyst Equity: Ovum buys RHK
• Let's play the Magic Quadrant game The Register

Click here for the full archive.

All resistance is futile...

Now that the Gartner Borg has completed assimilation of the META techno-utopians, they're after exterminating the remaining offshoots standing in their way to squeeze more dollars from clients -as would do any Gartner, a natural monopoly: as Analyst Equity reports, Meton is the last casualty.

Thou who have sinned shall be cursed by the Borg wrath, so will your children and their children's....

Gartner: now, pay to quote!

As predicted, the Borg is executing its plan to squeeze more revenue from vendors (see links below).
We have now received several confirmations from the AR community that Gartner now asks vendors to purchase reprint rights as a condition to quote Magic Quadrants in their press or marketing rights.
It is unclear whether this applies to only the graph or any quote, Gartner argues that only reproducing a quadrant can be misleading and that readers should have access to the whole piece.

Why? Read those previous posts:

• Gartner, a natural monopoly (Analyst Equity and Gartner Watch)
• (Distant) Echoes from the Barcelona Symposium
• Revealed: why Gartner took over META!!!

Silverlake update

Some news on Silverlake & Partners, one the largest private equity firms in the technology sector, with a prestigious board including Bill Gates, Scott McNeily, etc....
An high-ranking ex-IBMer just joined them:
http://www.forbes.com/businesswire/feeds/businesswire/2005/07/19/businesswire20050719005548r1.html

And, yes, they own Gartner too...

Gartner Watch: VA Partners boosts its stake in Gartner

Joe Guralnick (Gartner Watch): Gartner stock on the rise, is there something we don't know to explain vulture capitalists' interest into the borg?

Gartner Watch: VA Partners boosts its stake in Gartner

AMR Research Playing Serious in Europe

Rod Johnson - AMR Research General Manager for Europe - will be moving from Boston and relocate in the UK beginning next week.
This is a clear sign that the Boston-based IT Research firm has renewed intentions to set a solid presence in the continent.

After a disastrous Europan 'campaign' in 2001/02 - basically failed because it did not provide full back-office support to its local analysts (Simon Pollard, who left to Oracle; Kevin Lucas, off to Siebel)- the company has been "licking its wounds", leaving the whole European landscape to the only Nigel Montgomery.

Nigel has done a great job in keeping clients not too angered, given that they have been almost abandoned by AMR(as a matter of fact, a European company is not that happy to be served by US-based analysts).
Nigel is now supported by other 2 analysts - Guy Dunkerley and Derek Prior ('stolen' from Gartner). An additional sign of the company' intentions to confirm its European footprint.

General consent is that Rod Johnson's physical presence in the UK will be welcome.
Indeed AMR has the great opportunity to take over part of the META Group "heritage", as it has almost the same size and flexibility of the disappeared competitor.

We believe, though, that ROD will have at least two tough short-term challenges:

1st challenge: To convince European firms that AMR is a viable alternative to Gartner and Forrester. AMR lacks the hands-on approach provided by a consulting arm that can take over an analyst interaction and help the client implement the learnt findings and recommendations.

2nd challenge: to expand AMR's reach beyond the traditional countries served (i.e., UK, Nordics, France). Southern Europe (Italy, Spain) economies are deeply supply chain and manufacturing-centric. This would be the perfect market for AMR's services. But we do not see any consistent signs of the firm to get to these countries.

If not taken seriously, the challenges might resolve in another 'disaster' for AMR.
Especially if considering what Forrester is doing. It is opening local consulting presences in countries (e.g., Italy, Egypt) not directly serviced by its analyst community.

Analyst World: a Never-Ending Turmoil

News from today.
Stratos Sarissamlis, key expert analyst in Service Management and Outsourcing has left Ovum, which he joined only last May coming from META Group.

Personal comment: symptom that Ovum might have internal 'survival' problems?

META hemorragy from Gartner Group continues

Amy Santenello, META Group government strategies analyst retained by Gartner has officially left Gartner and moved to Oracle.

Another nail in the coffin ...

Another insider from ex-META Group'ers

As of August 10th Mark Theissen has taken a position with DATAllegro. DATAllegro is a data warehouse appliance vendor that is based in Aliso Viejo, California.
Mark told us that in his new position he has responsibility for presales technical support, consulting, analyst relations and education.

Another missed opportunity for Gartner.

Gartner still a hostile environment for ex-META analysts

It looks like Gartner is not able to keep attracted relevant META analysts.

News of yesterday is that Carl Lehmann - based in Boston, MA and an expert in SRM and e-business integration strategies - has left GG to ADX (www.adx.com).

We expect other ex-META analysts to leave sooner or later GG.
As predicted since the beginning, the super-bureaucratic work environment and the cultural differences are taking over the attempt of GG to retain the remainining pieces of the former competitor.

TigerLily teams up with Credo

We've just been given the update that Gerry Davies, one half of the Tiger Lily consultancy in England, has teamed up with PR firm Credo. Gerry has a broad background in marketing, which was reflected in Tiger Lily's focus on a broad range of influencers. It allows Credo to match the offer of Firefly, the London-based PR firm from which it seems to be abreak away.

Teaming up a PR agency is an interesting tactic. We've never felt that these 'most favoured nation' agreements really work in our favor as clients. No-one moved their PR to Edelman because of KCG's deal with them -- but it probably did make some people allied to other PR firms nervous about working with KCG.

Is it the Summer? Or the Reformation?

Did Martin Luther split Christianity in the summertime as well? Or is there some other reason that August seems to be the month for debunking myths?

We've seen Duncan denounce four myths; but Fred Abbot has overtaken him with publishing a much better paper exposing a huge total seven myths: that's three extra myths for free.

Duncan has struggled to come back by pointing out a further five dumb mistakes. It's hotting up. Sorry Duncan, but we still think Fred is ahead. Our estimate is that dumb mistakes are at least twice as easy to debunk as myths, and your five really only counts as two and a half. So it's 7 points to Fred, 6.5 points to Duncan.

Ten bonus points for the first one to nail a thesis to Gartner's door.

It cuts both ways

When it's coffee time on the ARmadgeddon campus we often talk of the power that industry watchers have over the vendors. It's fair to say that Gartner has the power to break of break us, both as businesses and as climbers of our corporate ladder. This weekend, let's give a thought to Michael Lynn, who career has been so toasted by Cisco that we suspect the only work he can get now is either for Kim Jong-il (who now prefers the company of technocrats) or being an assistant at Stanford.

For those of you who don't know the story, here it is. ISS researcher Michael Lynn found a major flaw in Cisco's routers. "Not to sensationalize, but it would be the digital Pearl Harbor we've heard about," Lynn said. Lynn agreed to address the Black Hat conference to draw attention to the dangers, and to push Cisco to act. "I felt it was the right thing to do for the country and for the national critical infrastructure" added Lynn. According to AP:
"Cisco, the leading maker of Internet equipment, was originally supposed to join Lynn on stage. But the company and ISS changed course earlier this week and tried to cancel the session, going so far as to hire workers to yank pages from conference handouts and seek a court order."

Lynn had to choose between keeping his job or making his presentation. Bravely, he chose the latter option. AP reports Lynn saying that his demonstration was stripped of any information that would lead anyone to figure out how the technique works. Nevertheless, Cisco's full legal apparatus was thrown at Lynn. ZDnet reports:
After the talk, Lynn retained attorney Jennifer Granick in the face of legal action by his former employer ISS and Cisco. Granick is the executive director of the Stanford Law School Centre for Internet and Society.
"Without her help I would be in some really serious trouble," Lynn said Thursday.

Stanford's Centre for Internet and Society(CIS) is playing an essential role in ensure the Internet serves the public good. To track their work, go to http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/list/ to subscribe to the CIS cyberlaw newsletter, Packets.

Analyst insight: "Gartner absorbs vertical services from G2"

As hinted here and revealed here, Gartner is moving to streamline their organisation and make sure the borg speaks to the borg. And since David is back from holidays, he produced a nice summary of the recent Gartner teleconference for AR professionals:
Analyst Insight: Gartner absorbs vertical services from G2

So, consulting will report to Sondergaard and that means the verticals are in the same organisation than the research silos.

Outsell has more in Going, Going, Going Vertical: Gartner Announces New Vertical Industry Products. Namely "client-shaped research agendas" and more transparency.

Bottom line: we think Gartner is moving in the right direction to address shortcomings of its silos and business practices. We welcome in particular the merging of G2 with research, but with a word of caution on the compensation model as analysts are not financially compensated to partner with consulting. This creates tensions in the organisation and has historically created situations where consulting and research have conflicting recommendations.
Another sore point for vendors remains the fact that the event business is still a separate entity as this will continue to present challenges for vendors to leverage their investment with Gartner across the whole product portfolio.

B3: Resistance is ... umm ... fertile

Andy's done a long post in his bit blue blog (any connection with Big Blue?) with answers to Joe and ARmadgeddon: Resistance is ... umm ... fertile. We've posted comments :-)

One more cat in the Valley gang

Update from Fred Abott to our previous post (Valley View Ventures: successfully herding cats?): Roger Kay (formerly IDC) has just established his own firm -Endpoint Technologies Associates- and selected V3 for representation.

The start of a federation against the Borg?

Gartner Watch: an open debate is good!

Have we got an axe to grind or are we contributing to an open debate?

Check all those comments: Joe first and foremost, Andy Bitterer (here and here), Silicon Valley Guy, R.E. Searcher (here, here), Ann Honimhous (here, here), James Governor (here, here and best of all there), Tony Byrne (here too), Indie Boy (here) but also to Duncan, David, Vinnie and all the other ones we can't possibly cite...

So, what do you think?

Keep your feedback coming! Agree, disagree, we love it!! And we're not moderated!!!




Bahahaaaahhha (private joke between James and Andy a.k.a. Drone #26022)

SPAR-ing partners

We just noticed Duncan's post asking What sort of AR association is needed?, which is a nice summary -- and more or less the only public one -- of some discussions going on about getting AR people closer together, including our repost yesterday from Stephen England.

As we posted last month, around three dozen people were represented at a Palo Alto meeting recently to discuss setting up an analyst relations professionals association. This is the third such attempt, and we hope it will be 'third time lucky'. A follow-up meeting will be held in Palo Alto in a few months' time, and a meeting will be organized in Orlando for attendees at Gartner's Symposium.

This is a promising development, and something we've talked about before (See our May post 'First signs of a professional association?'). The AR community is atomized and there is little wide-spread adoption of, or agreement on, best practice.

However, previous attempts to develop similar associations have failed. Those organizations struggled to gain scale, organizational resiliance and widespread acceptance. To succeed, this society needs scale, resiliance and respect.

Those who gathered at HP's offices were energetic, enthusiastic and appreciative of Carter Lusher's initiative in gathering them together. Nevertheless, that goodwill and energy is no guarantee of progress, no more than steam without a turbine can produce power.

The core issues of scale, resiliance and acceptance were not fully addressed in the discussion. Without resolving those tasks, the meeting at HP can be as successful as Kensington Group's AR Forums, KCG's Connect sessions or Lighthouse's European AR Club (which some in the Bay Area have also had a taste of). However, the appetite of some at the meeting is for a global and respected AR organization: that requires resolving these three issues.

Scale. Should colleagues 'tainted' by media relations or consulting be allowed to participate? Some forums are limited to those who organise AR outreach full-time. But then what about Microsoft's PR agencies, which contain almost 100 AR and PR specialists? Less than a handful of them work on AR full time, but surely there must be a lot of insight there. And what about the AR consultancies? ASG, Kensington, KCG, Lighthouse and the rest have a lot of insight and, as consultancies, they will have very broad experience that most of us don't have. We just don't see any good reason for excluding anyone. It looks really bad too. Some cynic told me the rule is there because Lusher and Hopkins will take any excuse to avoid seeing each other. Whatever.

Resiliance. Carter has huge energy and self-confidence, but broad active participation and professional organization will be needed. However, so did the earlier projects. If we want something that is representative, then it needs to be professionally organized. That needs a formal structure. If we reply on people to do it as a hobby, then it will fall apart.

Respect. It's not clear if we are launching a valley, national-wide or global organization. I would guess that the people at the meeting at HP represented 8% of people managing AR programs in California; 4% of those in the US; and 2% of those worldwide. Here we are, preparing charters and deciding on names. If we are organizing a Valley-wide networking group, then that's fine. However, if we assume that we have the authority to establish a global body, then that will stink of arrogance. It needs to be a slow and respectful process; not just a show of hands at a meeting at the US Symposium, while ignoring folk who attend Symposium in other countries, or who can't make it along that day.