Thoughts on Gartner buying Burton

For those who follow me on Twitter, this post will be very familiar as it is a write-up of the thoughts I posted there last week (slightly expanded and tidied up).

Thought 1
Gartner’s acquisition of Burton cements Gartner as THE company to go to if you want an analyst firm that is being paid by end user buyers for tech advice.

With AMR and Burton gone, there were now two less firms selling to end users – and there were few enough before. There are others out there but they’re mainly specialists and not of the same scale as Gartner.

Thought 2
I wonder what Forrester is doing nowadays as it's missed out on AMR and Burton. It seems to be losing out in the end user market.

Thought 3
This might lead to a bigger opportunity for Ovum to become the main alternative to Gartner in the end user space. If it gets things right...

Thought 4
Gartner's acquisitions seem focused on North America. Who would it try to buy in Europe? Thinking about this, I’m not sure there's anyone obvious over here. Perhaps that's why.

Thought 5
How do boutique firms scale to provide a real alternative to the establishment? There is a real challenge there for the smaller organisations.

Quality of work is important but volume of paid work does count too. It’s not just about creating noise (by which I mean work mainly undertaken to raise profile).

I am hoping that the likes of Ovum and the smaller boutiques (e.g. Quocirca) are going to work hard and keep the big boys honest and on their toes.

Final Thought
If you have a few minutes spare, then listen to the IIAR panel discussion that took place last week. It was interesting. You can find it on the IIAR blog.