Rick Moen Debunks Gartner Myths

An anonymous reader sent us a bit where Rick Moen speaks about the recent Linux Myths thing that has raise MS once again to the top of everyone's "People We Love" list. Its a good summary piece that pretty much explains how valid the Gartner Report was.

Comments

Hiding Out in the Information Age

[Skyshadow]

Don't blame Microsoft's PR department; this sort of thing really did used to work, and it used to be used by companies all the time. So it won't work against Linux; they just haven't realized it yet. It's like in the Civil War: None of the generals knew that their tactics were out of date compared to the weapons they were using, and some hadn't learned that by the end of the war (with disasterous consequences for their commands).

Mindcraft, Gartner and any other company that bases its business on its rep with the business community need to learn right now that you can't fool 100,000 pairs of eyeballs, no matter how hard you try to distract them, nor can you outshout 100,000 angry mouths yelling against you. They simply can't afford to pull this "We do a report for you that says exactly what you want it to say and you pays us" crap (which is exactly what they both did, its just that Mindcraft got paid before and Gartner got paid after).

The 100,000 brains out there are ripping this report to shreads, and 100,000 coworkers are talking about how the Gartner Group sold out to Microsoft. Gartner is, in a word, fucked; any second-year advertising major can tell you that word-of-mouth is the most incredibly powerful force for or against a company that exists.

Gartner made the mistake of letting MS use them to use a tactic that's out of date in the information age. The only question is how many more generals out there have yet to realize that their tactics are out of date, and how many more companies will have their reputation destroyed before this is over.

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I'm not sure I buy this

[Otter]

I admit I didn't bother to plow through all the links to the original /. post, but since this has turned into "All The President's Men", let's take a closer look at the conspiracy theory:

So, we're to believe that:
-- Gartner Group wrote it all, despite what the small-type notice (quoted earlier) says in direct contradiction.

Maybe I'm confused, but isn't all of this (the URL and the notice) pertaining to the "Webletter", not the original report?

-- We're to understand that a set of URLs on www.gartner.com are "the Microsoft site".

It's ComputerWorld that used those words, not Gartner. Not that they're necessarily wrong.

-- Microsoft "sponsors" this "site", and paid unspecified fees to Gartner Group related to the content, but in no way did Microsoft fund the study.

Again, I don't think this "site" or "content" is the "study".

In any case, I think people are missing the biggest offender here -- ComputerWorld, which took a report criticizing Linux as a business desktop and turned that into "A damning report from Gartner has all but put the kiss of death on Linux."

Mythosoft

[Signal 11]

Hasn't anybody told Microsoft yet that Linux itself is a myth? It really doesn't exist.. we're just trying to get your goat. I mean... system uptime measured in years? High performance out of desktop computers? You'd have to be pretty gullible to believe all that. And to top it off, an operating system that doubles in functionality while increasing it's speed by a similar amount at every major release? Absolutely unbelieveable! Programmers who devote their free time to giving away their code? I can barely contain myself.. I really must go...

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The problem with branding ...

[LL]

... is that ultimately it appeals to the emotions, whether the safety of the pack or reinforcing existing prejudices (let's face it, the existance of rather spotty quality free/shareware has tarnished the origins of GNU/OpenSource). The marketing concept of the "Big Lie" (repeat anything long enough and people will believe it) probably offends engineers' sense of asethetics, being trained to think logically and applying careful principles to evaluate physical properties. Unfortunately, how do you measure two complex pieces of software? Function points (ie bells and whistles) are easy to count but who measures subtle factors like quality, support, and reliability? As they say, a leaky tap gets the attention whereas something designed to work correctly the first time is not noticed. The lack of marketing oomph outside word-of-mouth is a somewhat mixed blessing as unless people are aware of alternatives, they cannot have free choice, especially given inherent biases in some trade journals. Perhaps one way of redressing the balance is for every piece of OpenSource software available for public release (ie not beta) have 3 sets of numbers associated with it.

1. cost to repair/replace
   
2. estimated useful product lifecycle
   
3. mean time between failure/update
   

giving a rule of thumb purchase price + (1) * (2) / (3) lifetime cost. Perhaps other /.ers can suggest metrics for giving consumers a better feel for what the real cost of software really is beyond the initial marked price. In particular, people should be aware of the switching costs as given the rapid pace ot technology, something better always comes along. This is true regardless of whether it is OpenSource or Commercial. The only way to combat FUD is to provide independently validated information which the consumers can then use to make up their own minds as to the value and stability of whatever software goods they are purchasing.

All brand and no beef makes for very skimpy meal.

LL

Amazing

[witz]

How so much misinformation can lead to so much knee-jerk reactivity.
Gartner writes reports for companies on a subscription basis. IE PAID. The company I work for, for example, pays Gartner for consulting and reports. The "webletter" on the Gartner site is a paid Microsoft publication of the original Gartner report, it is NOT the actual Gartner report. MS did not pay Gartner to trash Linux, they paid Gartner for the ability to post the Gartner report on Linux on their site.
If you people would actually READ the report, instead of that idiotic summation by IDG and the Microsoft produced webletter, you'd realize that it isn't that big of a rip on Linux. It simply criticizes the *current* state of Linux as a viable desktop solution. It applauds what Linux is doing in other areas.
Sheesh. Stop the zealotry and start to look at things with a *calm* and objective eye.

Credibility of Analysis/Credulity of Readers

[Technik~]

Sidestepping the matter of ComputerWorld putting its own spin on the report, what is the credibility of Gartner, Giga, etc. in the IT industry? The second question is who is their target audience?

These analysis groups have a deservedly bad reputation among IS/IT staff for the same reason that the national news reports lack accuracy when one is personally familiar with the event: the author is too far from the subject matter to do it justice and the readership doesn't demand more. Ask anyone who does the "heavy lifting" in an IT shop about one of these reports. If they are more than vaguely knowledgeable about the subject they can pick the report apart. Now try the same thing with upper management. Funny how the response is different.

These groups make their living producing, despite their claims, shallow analysis for a readership that needs information quickly so that they can become "instant experts" before the next meeting. Depth is not necessary, technical accuracy obfuscates, just get the gist and make it readable. The topic of the week is always on the horizon and this must be put into the readership's hands fast. Odds are good that the information will be lost or forgotten (for a chuckle, go back and read last year's reports and predictions).

I know I've said it before, but these companies have a track record for post-prediction and a habit of ignoring their misses that makes psychics look good. Worse, I personally know a few people who work for these companies and I can only say that I was glad to see such people leave.