| Gartner is a consulting firm. It makes money telling CEO wanna-be's what fad to follow.
You go pitch some venture capitalists for money, and you tell them that the industry you are in will grow by 64% per year from now until eternity (Source: Gartner). That kind of thing. Or you want to get rid of Microsoft and put in all linux boxes (or vice versa) so you make a slide full of bullet points from Gartner (or Forrester, or whomever supports your cause) to show the Big Suits that you know your stuff. But you're right, I forgot that there are those people who don't know anything and can't think. The ones who figure stuff out by running around and "talking to people" to see what they think. Those people might actually believe the crap that Gartner tells them! You have ruined my day by telling me this. I had assumed those consulting guys were reasonably harmless. But you're right, there are probably people right now acting on stuff that Gartner tells them. No wonder things are so screwed up. |
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.