Open Source Unleashed: Analysts influence commoditized?

September 2008

Fellow Analysts

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Brenda Michelson
Brenda Michelson is the principal of Elemental Links, an IT consulting and advisory practice specializing in strategy, architecture, and portfolio planning for business-driven IT.
Jon Collins
Josh Chalifour
Content Manager and Open Source Analyst.
Cote'
Stephen O'Grady
James Governor
Richard Monson-Haefel

People Across the Blogosphere

Steve Shreeve
Larry Augustin
Angel investor and advisor to early stage technology companies.
Jeff Waugh
Passionate about the philosophy of Software Freedom and the business of Open Source.
Ismael Ghalimi
Founder and CEO of Intalio, creator of BPMI.org and initiator of Office 2.0
Ivelin Ivanov
Member of the JBoss core team as well as Director of Product Development.
Vinnie Mirchandani
Founder of Deal Architect, former technology industry analyst (with Gartner), outsourcing executive (with PwC, now part of IBM) and entrepreneur (founder of sourcing advisory firm, Jetstream Group).
David Rossiter
Runs an IT PR agency focused on helping companies communicate with IT industry analysts.
Zach Urlocker
Glyn Moody
Technology journalist and author covering the Internet and free software since 1994, 1995.
Brian Aker
Ben Rockwood
Joshua Schachter
Andrew Lark
Award-winning global communications and marketing professional
Coda Hale
Jeff Clavier
Software entrepreneur, senior executive, venture capitalist, consultant, angel investor,... in a rather peculiar (but hopefully relevant and fun) mix

As the entire world witnesses the effects of the Information Age, I think it is appropriate for the industry analyst community to ponder how the commoditization of information affects the influence of industry analysts. Lighthouse AR has some strong content over at Analyst Equity about varied aspects of the influence of industry analysts.

Personally I am curious about how the availability of information from a variety of both credible and not-so-credible sources (courtesy of the Internet) affect how industry analysts are used? I realize the Internet can't provide the type of market analysis, channel and marketing strategies and vertical market knowledge that analysts are capable of providing, but does the availability of a wealth of unstructured content weaken or strengthen the value of what it can't provide?

Since Entiva does not have quite the reach to conduct or own extensive CIO survey on this topic (we probably would decline to do so even if we did...it's outside of our focus area) I'm curious to hear what those across the blogosphere have to say about it.

Comments

You're raised an excellent point here [and thanks for mentioning us]. In fact, our surveys of CIOs shows we now have two different communities of analyst useres: subscribers [who get want they want and are happy with analysts research]; and borrowers [who use only what they can can get for free, and are generally unhappy with what they have]. Many analysts think they are expanding their audence by giving research away; and they are doing that. However, readers do realised that the free stuff isn't as good. It's fascinating: you really can't fool all the people all the time.

Duncan.

Posted by: Duncan Chapple | July 28, 2006 at 07:31 AM

This is not my field of expertise, I admit, but I thought I'd offer my two cents, for what it's worth. I don't think the information available via the internet can ever compare to the precision and statistic support offered by industry analysts.

Posted by: thebizofknowledge.com | September 04, 2006 at 01:16 PM