Gartner is a consulting firm. It makes money telling CEO wanna-be's what fad to follow. These are typically golf-course conversations, though they sometimes happen at gyms, too. Gartner itself has no stake in these decisions.
If your company outsources your data warehousing to Asia, and you suddenly get hit by lawsuits from those of your customers whose personal data was stolen by the rampant IP piracy thefts over there, it matters not to Gartner (so long as your firm pays their expensive consulting bill, at least).
Pause
Gartner thrives because it has a most amazing niche; there is a certain level of corporate America where mid-to-high level management (i.e. CEO wanna-be's) has some amount of institutional power, though has no real personal wealth (e.g. would never be on the pages of Architectural Digest).
Gartner is perhaps the best of them all (since Andersen failed, anyway) at schmoozing with that level of Management.
...And that level of Management typically makes up for its lack of personal wealth by wielding its corporate decision-making power...precisely the sort of power that Gartner thrives upon.
This decision-making power is typically used to make Management's daily routine easier, or more "hip," or to get noticed (target audience varies widely). Such Managers at that level structure their staffing levels so that personal whims and desired customizations (in everything, but this is particularly relevant to IT) in operation are constantly being made.
But customizations and personal whims are by definition neither the most efficient nor the least costly way to operate a business...much to the utter delight of Gartner...
...Because Gartner can *always* find cost-savings by making suggestions to cut out, outsource, or otherwise adjust just how much of said personal (for the Director) customizations are being performed.
The Director who wants custom Presentation changes to be made to software, for instance, is using IT staff in a very expensive way. The more efficient solution is to buy off-the-shelf retail software and live with it rather than to always be customizing everything.
Gartner isn't going to tell the Director that, however. Instead, Gartner is going to say "outsource" those desired customizations to some 3rd world coding sweatshop to save money.
Keep in mind that all of this applies to non-IT areas, too. The difference is that MOST companies have a core profit-making center that is *NOT* IT.
In those companies, IT is viewed merely as an overhead expense (quite a different view than how MicroSoft and Adobe view their IT departments). So all that Gartner is doing, in the minds of the Directors at the level that I'm discussing, is giving consulting advice that amounts to "cut overhead expenses."
This is very effective...at least for continuously making money from "consulting."
Sadly, because this is corporate *cultural* phenomenon, non of the above is likely to change significantly in the near future.
On the other hand, there is something that you can do, whether you are in IT or not.
Whatever your skillset, from programming to accounting to zoo-keeping, you will avoid the above-mentioned forms of outsourcing dangers to your job if you go to work for a firm that makes its money directly off of your area of expertise. Programmers working for software firms, i.e. those companies that sell software to make their earnings, would fit this bill. Zoo-keepers who work at for-profit zoos rather than for a casino that just keeps them around for show would likewise fit this bill.
But if you are a programmer at a bank, knowing full well that the bank makes its earnings from loans, not from your software, then you are at risk.
...And now you know...
You know, you're probably right. It had never occurred to me that there are actually people who follow their advice. I had always assumed that the function of Gartner was to provide backup for whatever BS you were trying to sell with your Powerpoints.