[LINK] How to Analyse the Analysts

[Chirgwin, Richard]

I love some of the insights in this article.

>So why spend celestial sums on advice that is less than divine?
>Because it's the price of admission to get you in to talk with 
>these people one-on-one.
[small snip]
>Face-to-face and over the phone, analysts can be enormously valuable.

Huh? The analyst's written report is useless, but if you buy it, you can
talk to the author of the useless information, because what they know
doesn't go in print.

Another way of looking at this: we'll put bulldust in the report so that the
media can get excited, but if you're "in the club" we'll tell the truth.

>The fact is, most analysts' methodologies are something less 
>than scientific. Just how much less than scientific is a 
>matter of some mystery. Analysts don't like to reveal 
>what's going on behind the curtain.

Here's two propositions:
1) An opinion poll involves 2,000 phone calls and sophisticated analysis.
The results AND the methodology are published for free. The public can
debate the merits of phone versus in-person interviews. etc.
2) An IT analysis involves an undisclosed number of phone calls and is
plugged into (for example) a "secret-secret" methodology such as Gart's TCO
Model. Customers then pay thousands of dollars for it.

Which one makes more sense?

In truth, a CIO pays for this stuff not because he/she actually believes it,
but because he/she cannot offer up a proposal to the board without finding
some sort of analyst-endorsed justification. If I decide to implement CP/M
as my server OS, feasibility is less important than analyst endorsement.

By the way, using analysts to critique analysts (as this author did) is just
a hoot...

Richard Chirgwin

-----Original Message-----
From: Bernard Robertson-Dunn [mailto:brd@austarmetro.com.au]
Sent: Friday, 12 October 2001 9:24
To: Link
Subject: [LINK] How to Analyse the Analysts


<brd>
For all those of us who are sceptical about the quality of the
prognostications of The Analysts
</brd>

How to Analyse the Analysts
BY LAUREN GIBBONS PAUL 
8 September, 2001 11:00 
Australian CIO
http://cio.com.au/idg2.nsf/AllCIO/1FB713BCD38EF1F34A256AD9001E33C4!OpenDocum
ent&NavArea=Home&SelectedCategoryName=Features"

Psst. See that great stack of paper on the corner of your desk? You know
the one. It contains all the latest research from your IT analyst firm -
the research that costs you hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

Get up right now, pick up the pile and toss it in the garbage.

Dump it because most of the written material - especially the market
projections - is not worth your time.

Why? Because more often than not, it is simply wrong. Remember Gartner
Group's late 80s prediction that OS/2 - Microsoft and IBM's jointly
developed operating system - would dominate the desktop within five years?
Such predictions go wildly awry because typically they are based on little
hard data and they try to cover a vast sweep of time. "Anyone who predicts
a market will be a certain size five years out, put a muzzle on them. It's
utterly irresponsible," says Evan Quinn, chief research officer for the
Hurwitz Group (US).

.... etc etc 
-- 
Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by
Jackasses.
-- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
brd@dynamite.com.au
brd@austarmetro.com.au