back to article NetScout sues Gartner over magic quadrant placement

NetScout has taken offence at its low placement in the all-powerful marketing tool, the Gartner magic quadrant, to such an extent that it's suing the analyst firm. In paperwork filed on August 5, the network software vendor has come out swinging at Gartner, accusing it of running a “pay-to-play” operation. “Gartner is not …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gartner says...

    The problem here is that Gartner produces 'opinions,' not something more official. This has been challenged in court and it was upheld:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Quadrant#Criticism

    So the real source of anger about Gartner is that industry players pay attention to what Gartner says. Thus the real purpose of this lawsuit is not to win, but to educate those industry players about how biased (presumably) Gartner really is, a noble endeavor.

    My question is, how does Gartner command such high ground in the first place?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Gartner says...

      The problem here is that Gartner produces 'opinions,' not something more official.

      seems to me to be more of a little fish taking offense at being called a little fish ;)

      aside from that:

      1. what reports, if any, are truly ""official""??

      2. if it is opinion, is it not covered under "free speech" (in the US at least)??

      1. Olius

        Re: Gartner says...

        It may be "free speech", but if what you freely say is harmful and untrue, a court may decide it is libellous.

        1. Tom 13

          Re: a court may decide it is libellous.

          That's actually a higher standard than NetScout will have to meet. Yes, it is opinion and so due a great deal of deference in the US. But, since Gartner claims to be making a technical assessment they need to be able to show unbiased methods for determining their rankings.

          That being said, even the lesser standard NetScout is claiming will be difficult to prove, even if everybody in the industry suspects it is true. At least absent a smoking email.

      2. James Micallef Silver badge

        Re: Gartner says...

        I think the point isn't whether Gartner reports are 'official' but whether or not they are 'unbiased' (as Gartner claims they are). If firms are paying Gartner for a study, and that study finds that the firms paying for it are the best, it's basically advertising in disguise.

        To be fair, it's hardly like Gartner are alone in this. Any consulting company asked to do some research will come to the conclusion desired by the sponsoring company

    2. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: Gartner says...

      So the real source of anger about Gartner is that industry players pay attention to what Gartner says.

      The only times I've seen Gartner's magic quadrants is in vendor marketing material. Does anyone actually make purchasing decisions based on these reports & analysis? Or are they just used by marketing bods?

      1. theblackhand

        Re: Gartner says...

        Are they used? Yes

        At a minimum they are used by large companies for creating short lists of vendors to work with and I have worked with one company that choose a global telecoms provider based on a dubious Gartner report (i.e. the answer wasn't one of the two global providers that usually pop up for a global solution and the vendor had almost no presence at all in one of our key geographic regions when they were chosen.... i.e. the regional enterprise account managers dog accounted for 33% of the regional head count).

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Gartner says...

        Unfortunately YES, if you go before the board of a large corporate with a purchasing recommendation you are likely to be asked where that rank on the Magic Quadrant, and why you have not considered those who rank higher. (actual experience)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Gartner says...

      The problem here is that Gartner produces 'opinions,' not something more official. This has been challenged in court and it was upheld:

      According to the Wikipedia page you linked to, the court dismissed the claim due to lack of a specific complaint. Gartner's First Amendment "pure opinion" argument never got to be tested in court, let alone upheld.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Gartner says...

      "Gartner is not independent, objective or unbiased,” the complaint states, “and its business model is extortionate by its very nature”. It says the Gartner model rewards big-spending clients with favourable placements in the magic quadrant, and punishes those who don't spend."

      How is that even news?

  2. Lamb0
    Big Brother

    It may be libel if...

    "In the March report, Gartner described NetScout as running behind the market on its architecture, feature sets and pricing, and said the company was “currently struggling to deal with new technical demands and rising expectations”."

    is NOT accurate and/or the "Magic Quadrant" doesn't fit reality, or Gartner truly is "Pay to Play".

    Gartner's report isn't just some blogger in his mommie's basement; but is supposed to be a purchased professional evaluation report.

    1. theblackhand

      Re: It may be libel if...

      Regarding the opinions, in the technology evaluations I have read from Gartner, they are fairly generic and can usually be backed up fairly easily. Where technology companies miss out is in publishing dates of reports - "missing major features" can mean your new product release shipped after the report date. "Struggling to deal with technical demands and rising expectations" can mean that you are growing rapidly and engineering/technical/support resources are stretched.

      I don't know enough about NetScout and it's competitors to know if these apply.

    2. James Micallef Silver badge

      Re: It may be libel if...

      "Gartner's report isn't just some blogger in his mommie's basement; but is supposed to be a purchased professional evaluation report."

      The problem with a "purchased professional evaluation report" is that if a company pays Gartner for an evaluation and Gartner says "it sucks", it's unlikely that this company will return to Gartner in the future. This is really stupid 'shoot the messenger' approach, but that's the way it is.

      Same thing happening with credit rating agencies - hypothetical example: rating agency Foody's tell Investment Bank Soldman Bachs "these subprime mortgages/credit default swaps suck, we're not rating them", then Soldman went down the road to Mitch who happily slap on an AAA rating. Next time Soldman has a toxic investment wrapped up in a shiny bow, who are they going to pay to rate it?

      In both cases the problem is that ratings are paid for by the supplier not by the consumer.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MagicQuadrant sucks big time, my company is in a favorable position (not same sector as NetScout, though) and it so we look good on it, however, the reasoning is just complete utter marketing BS.

    Some years ago we were not well placed ... so we "took Gartner seriously" (out to dinner etc, etc) and since are in the leading spot.

    Anon for obvious reasons ...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Marketing Budgets

    I remember speaking to the CEO of big player in the email anti-malware space who when asked "why that were not featured in an awards short-list" replied that they were spending all of their marketing budget on wooing Gartner to ensure a favourable placement in the magic quadrant.

  5. ChrisElvidge

    Magic

    I don't trust magic in any part of my business.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    Gartners answer?

    Will be simple, drop them completely. You can't be sued for "libel" if you don't mention them.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Past employee

    Anon for good reason: I worked at G for over 5 years and never once did any examples of "pay for play" ever occur during my tenure. As a matter of fact I was even very closely involved with one of G's extremely large vendor customers and on any given day it was a love/hate relationship depending on the particular view of the analyst(s) at the time.

    That said I also had significant exposure to both non and very small clients and still never a hint of treating some different than others based on contract value (the internal term for renewable client spend.)

    Understand that G also limits the total number of days they can spend with a single vendor per year, they have a very effective ombudsman policy and analysts are for the most part oblivious to whether or not a given company is a paying client (nor do they get paid if they are/aren't a client.) Analysts are usually paid (beyond salary) for the reports they generate, inquiries they take and/or on/off premise strategy sessions they lead/contribute to.

    Every end-user or vendor has access to the same analysts regardless if whether or not they were a paying client or not. So, in most regards, it's quite fair...if you know how to navigate the waters. Some AR people within vendors simply don't know the tricks and instead just believe to not play the game...and further decide to believe its a "pay to play."

    Generally it's all about building a relationship, no different than a vendor selling to a customer. With relationship comes ability to influence.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Past employee

      Thanks for your unbiased feedback Gunnar Berger...

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. elip

    value?

    what value does Gartner actually provide out here in "the real world"? looks like another marketing funnel to me.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gartner MQ

    as someone whose product area often falls under the scrutiny of Gartner's Magic Quadrants.. I have and often being in the position of being unfavorably positioned in Gartner MQ, i can definitely empathize with Netscout's beef.

    1) many companies require that you show the Gartner MQ and your product's position in it; hence if Gartner doesn't lavish praise on your solution, this will directly impact the possibility of your closing a particular deal. In many cases, if your solution is not in the Leaders' Quadrant, you are SOL.

    2) Gartner MQ ratings/commentaries are indeed researched, but often not sufficiently in depth. In several cases I have seen that commentaries take the vendor presentation at face value ("vendor says X, therefore X")

  10. Alethia

    In my humble opinion and from experience with customers who apply Gartner MQ results in their decision processes and many IT product vendor experiences with companies I have represented who have been rated by Gartner in their MQ surveys, Gartner is held in high regard by many of those customer organizations I dealt with, and in that regard, IT vendors who participate in the Gartner process, understand the value that Gartner provides. It will be interesting to see if NetScout prevails with its lawsuit contentions.

    NetScout has its own peculiar view of the world. Competition in the performance management space and how NetScout responds is more of an issue, in my opinion, than Gartner's current rating, which, if accurate, is indicative of NetScout slippage from its historical leadership role in the PM space.

    At the end of the day, this lawsuit will take its course, and the outcome will be whatever it will be.

    Gartner will continue with its operations and business model. If as indicated in earlier responses, that Gartner is influenced through relationships built and sustained by the vendor (which seems obvious to many), one could conclude that NetScout has placed a big hurdle for itself in building and sustaining its Gartner relationship - to their own detriment perhaps??

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