Media continues to cite META Group

I have found a fascinating page at Topix. It tracks mentions of META Group. Interestingly, even though Gartner announced the purchase of that firm in 2004, there are some.

A great example is this story from May this year, in which a META Group analyst comments on Dell's performance.

How serious are journalists' conversations with analysts if they don't even check the name of the analyst firm they are citing?

Another one bites the dust

In the wake of SageCircle and Kensington Group, we can now report at Serendipp, a UK analyst relations consultancy, has also closed.

Readers might recall that last December we had some criticisms and harsh comments about that company. In Serendipp's opinion, "Analysts only do two things: size markets and do case studies".

Our comments was this: "This is so far from being right, it's not even worth calling wrong. Sizing markets and writing case studies is what gets outsourced to India. The real work of analysts is quite different: and that is why analysts have substantial advisory, consulting and custom research businesses. If an AR advisor doesn't realize this, then heaven help their clients."

Indeed, the company has now closed. A posting on the firm's blog explains that those the firm's partners have taken employment elsewhere. Rest in peace.

However, this story has a little tickle are the end. Our chiding of Serendipp last years ended this this comment which, in hindsight, is amazing prescient: "It would be far better to understand one's limitations and keep only do what you know how to do. In that respect, kudos to Hill & Knowlton. If Duncan's latest post is correct (my Norwegian is rusty) their European AR is led by their partner agency in Oslo, Gambit, which hired a former IBM AR manager in 1999."

What's interesting is that one of Serendipp's partners has been hired by H&K to work on its European analyst relations. Let's hope his boss in Oslo doesn't let her analyst relations business go the same way as Serendipp.

Blon-idc and briefing 101

David posted those links recently:

IDC analyst going blonde (Analyst Insight: Mobile analyst goes blonde for charity)

and this briefing 101 from a Yankee analyst, well worth a read even if you've been doing AR for a while [The Human Capitalist:] The Vendor Pitch

Gartner bullies Redmonk (and then apologises)

The summer was going to pass by whitout major events (apart from the World Cup of course) when Gartner suddlenly headbutted Redmonk:

James Governor's MonkChips: My First Gartner Cease And Desist: the missing link

Now, this is quite funny -the only thing James did was to post this link on his blog, there. And Gartner issued a cease and desist, for deep linking probably?

Although we have great respect for some Gartner analysts, it's probably fair to say that the Borg behaves itself like a bully. It was until now confined to vendor relations but this Borgian trait seems to be spreading....

17/7 update: commenting on a subsequent post where James publishes the incriminating email, Allison from the Borg Vendor Police apologises for their bullying. Borg 0 - Blogosphere 1.

IDC and DQ: sausage factories?

Witty comparison from Cambashi between market numbers and sausages:
Everyone likes sausages Jun 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.