Re: OT: Av and Gartner...

["Marcus J. Ranum" <mjr () ranum com>]

John Keeton wrote:
> Also, anyone have any experiance with Garner regarding security items? 

Yes.

I am amazed that anyone listens to Gartner about anything. Their
"research" is based almost entirely on hearsay, vendor marketing
literature, and vendor briefings (aka "consulting")  - while they
try very hard to dodge the question of whether their "research"
is influenced by the amount of money they get from a vendor, it's
pretty obvious what's going on if you line up who pays them and
who gets covered. You virtually never see anyone on thier stupid
magic quadrant who is not a Gartner research customer or a
consulting customer. Of course they're very cagy about the
relationship between how much you pay and where you wind up,
there have been some extraordinary anomalies. Perhaps the
most significant recently was Gartner's hyping of "Intrusion
Prevention" technology - in particular they widely hyped Intruvert's
IPS. Yet no customers, according to a Gartner analyst I discussed
Intruvert with, used Intruvert in its in-line "prevention" mode. So
what did Gartner base their "research" on? Intruvert's marketing
literature? There's a serious credibility gap - indeed I'd go so far
as to say there's a serious integrity gap.

Does Gartner test technology? No. What do they actually
base their "recommendations" on? They base them on what
the vendors who pay them the most - their real customers -
want them to recommend. If you want recommendations that
have some kind of integrity, you need to look to people who
have actually gotten some hands-on time with products
and who actually understand a technology.

When I talk to "C-level" senior management I rate their
clue level based on whether they believe Gartner reports
or not. I figure if I run into a CIO who takes Gartner
reports seriously, that I've run into someone who worked
up the management chain through political skills and
organizational skills, not through technical skills, or
technological vision. Taking Gartner reports seriously
is a dead-on tipoff that you're dealing with an incompetent
empty suit - after all, to take Gartner seriously, you'd
have to be more ignorant about technology than they
are. Which is hard to imagine.

mjr. 

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