Thursday, February 09, 2006
The recent attack on the industry analyst profession...
I observed an interesting discussion on a recent article published by Information Week on the topic of the credibility of industry analysis where many peers in other Fortune enterprises pinged me to see if I had read it. While I have been expressing many of the concerns in my blog over the last year or two, it is finally coming to a head within corporate America. I guess Management by Magazine can sometimes work to my own advantage...
The article though only touched on some of the points I have previously discussed. One point that I would love to see them take on is telling the story of Fortune 500 enterprises that have made forays into placing software they have developed into open source communities. Folks such as Duke Energy, J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank come to mind. What probably becomes challenging is treating a customer of analyst research like a vendor and customer at the same time. I suspect though, that James Governor and Stephen O'Grady may have their own perspectives on this issue.
In the same way that industry analyst firms have participated in providing ammunition to help move many IT jobs out of America to places such as India, maybe they could use their same research prowess and marketing of overwise mediocre delivery to help get corporations adopt open source in a more aggressive manner.
Regulated industries are prime opportunities for open source, since compliance isn't a sustainable competitive advantage. Maybe if enterprises started paying more attention to the value that open source brings instead of strictly focusing on all the hype of a service-oriented architecture then may be able to realize a compliance-oriented architecture that helps realize the best of both worlds.
Michael Goulde of Forrester seems to hint at several of the areas which need deeper coverage but hasn't taken the next step of not only researching it, but doing so in an open manner. I would be esctatic if he could personally ping my blog from his blog which thoughts to each of the below blog entries:
If analysts are smart, they may use a misdirection technique so that this argument will either quickly dissipate and/or move to another target. One opportunity that they can leverage is to start coverage of leading law firms with open source practices. If you click the link, you may notice that none of them blog nor actually have incorporated open source into their own business model. If the folks at Redmonk, could invent open source analysis, maybe they could figure out the notion of open source legal advice?
Actually, in thinking about this problem space, one of the primary drivers of not only adopting open source but in making it sustainable is the notion of community which is somewhat foreign to us folks in large enterprises. Maybe I don't need all of the above questions answered. All I may need is for someone to tell us folks in their next research brief Why community matters...
| | View blog reactionsThe article though only touched on some of the points I have previously discussed. One point that I would love to see them take on is telling the story of Fortune 500 enterprises that have made forays into placing software they have developed into open source communities. Folks such as Duke Energy, J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank come to mind. What probably becomes challenging is treating a customer of analyst research like a vendor and customer at the same time. I suspect though, that James Governor and Stephen O'Grady may have their own perspectives on this issue.
In the same way that industry analyst firms have participated in providing ammunition to help move many IT jobs out of America to places such as India, maybe they could use their same research prowess and marketing of overwise mediocre delivery to help get corporations adopt open source in a more aggressive manner.
Regulated industries are prime opportunities for open source, since compliance isn't a sustainable competitive advantage. Maybe if enterprises started paying more attention to the value that open source brings instead of strictly focusing on all the hype of a service-oriented architecture then may be able to realize a compliance-oriented architecture that helps realize the best of both worlds.
Michael Goulde of Forrester seems to hint at several of the areas which need deeper coverage but hasn't taken the next step of not only researching it, but doing so in an open manner. I would be esctatic if he could personally ping my blog from his blog which thoughts to each of the below blog entries:
- Do Industry analysts have integrity?
- Enterprise Architecture and Analyst Relations
- A customer perspective on Industry Analyst Firms
- Enterprise Architecture, Industry Analysts and Startups
- More Thoughts on Industry Analysts
- Industry Conferences and Industry Analysts
- Industry Analysts and Blowhard Jamborees
If analysts are smart, they may use a misdirection technique so that this argument will either quickly dissipate and/or move to another target. One opportunity that they can leverage is to start coverage of leading law firms with open source practices. If you click the link, you may notice that none of them blog nor actually have incorporated open source into their own business model. If the folks at Redmonk, could invent open source analysis, maybe they could figure out the notion of open source legal advice?
Actually, in thinking about this problem space, one of the primary drivers of not only adopting open source but in making it sustainable is the notion of community which is somewhat foreign to us folks in large enterprises. Maybe I don't need all of the above questions answered. All I may need is for someone to tell us folks in their next research brief Why community matters...
