Most people I know are scathing about the established analyst community like Gartner. Instead they prefer to mention newer analyst groups like Freeform Dynamics and Redmonk. Even so, I know plenty of vendors who pay Gartner very large sums of money to gain access to their research. Why? Because Gartner's work holds value for slower moving enterprises. At all sorts of levels. Its Hype Cycle analysis is widely regarded as a useful tool for understanding how technology adoption works in the real world. Its Magic Quadrants are feared by technology providers of all stripes. If you've advised or implemented on an SAP or Oracle solution, the chances are you've had Gartner material as part of your due diligence book.

Today I received an email noting that Zoho has been selected as one of Gartner's 'Cool Vendors.' OK, snigger if you like. More interesting is what Gartner had to say about the current Web 2.0 wave of interest (and hype):

Web 2.0 harnesses innovations from consumer markets and brings them to enterprises. Technologies associated with Web 2.0 (for example, Ajax) will have benefits by themselves, but the real power comes from those that leverage new social and business capabilities. Web communities can provide rich, new interactions among employees, business partners and customers. Web platforms and their architecture provide an adaptable technology model and potentially require significantly less-expensive infrastructure to support.

Many others have said the same thing. But when Gartner says it, big companies take notice. When that happens, experienced observers will tell you that has a positive impact on technology adoption. I have three caveats.

1. While I know there is plenty of web 2.0 style innovation going on, that is not the same as adoption. Adoption may stall for all sorts of reasons.
2. The most fascinating 'stuff' is happening at the edge or among very small groups. Those examples are really hard to winkle out so the body of experiential knowledge is painfully thin. It means that even those of us who are mad keen on this stuff are struggling to find success stories that tell a consistent story. And consistency matters.
3. Many of the technologies are unproven or will not survive. Steve Rubel has an uncharacteristically sober post on this very topic. Jeremy Pepper is none too pleased but I happen to think on this one Steve calls it right. As one client said: "We're not going to bet on year old technology."

It's always important to remember that coins have two sides.

Technorati Tags: Gartner, web 2.0

Share This