Criticism
It has been pointed out that the criteria for the Magic Quadrant cater more towards investors and large vendors than towards buyers.
Much of the criticism is focused on the lack of disclosure of the money received from the vendors it rates, raising conflict of interest issues. Also a source of criticism is the lack of disclosure on the vendor's component scores and the lack of transparency in Gartner's methodology used to derive the vendor's position on the MQ map.
There's also a hidden tax on vendors, favouring those with well staffed Analyst relations teams: each of those 'landscape reports' can take up to 150-200 hours for each vendor, putting MQ's out of reach for those without dedicated AR resources.
The Magic Quadrant, and analysts in general also skew the market: according to research conducted by a Scottish lecturer by applying their methodologies to describe a market, they change that marketplace to fit their tools.
Another criticism is that open source vendors are not considered sufficiently by analysts like Gartner, as has been published in an unusual online discussion between a VP from Talend and a German Research VP from Gartner.
Gartner was the target of a federal lawsuit (filed May 29, 2009) from software vendor, ZL Technologies, challenging the “legitimacy” of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant rating system. Gartner filed a motion to dismiss by claiming First Amendment protection since it contends that its MQ reports contain "pure opinion," which legally means opinions which are not based on fact. The court threw out the ZL case because it lacked a specific complaint, but the judge opened the door for the company to resubmit, which it plans to do shortly.
Industry scrutiny has resurfaced in the light of Gartner's release of their 2012 eGRC Magic Quadrant. Michael Rasmussen, a long time Forrester analyst, who is now independent and first defined the GRC market, recently published a "rant" ( regarding the methods and outcomes of Gartner and Forrester analysis. This critique has received many online responses (many in the consulting and software industry who remain anonymous) validating Mr. Rasmussen's conclusions and experiences, often citing the fundamental and, arguably obvious, conflict of interest.
Finally,
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Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Good criticism is very rare and always precious.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)