I’ve made light of my issues with Gartner before. From mild twitching when the name is mentioned to outright physical acts of dismissal. Aneel Lakhani did a great job on an episode of the Packet Pushers dispelling a lot of the bad blood that most people have for Gartner. I listened and my attitude toward them softened somewhat. It wasn’t until recently that I I finally realized that my problem isn’t necessarily with Gartner. It’s with those that use Gartner as a blunt instrument against me. Simply put, Gartner has a perception problem.

Because They Said So

Gartner produces a lot of data about companies in a number technology related spaces. Switches, firewalls, and wireless devices are all subject to ranking and data mining by Gartner analysts. Gartner takes all that data and uses it to give form to a formless part of the industry. They take inquiries from interested…