Why Does the IT Industry Continue to Listen to Gartner?

Ed Bott:

Gartner is getting more than its fair share of attention today for a controversial series of blog posts on Windows 8 from research director Gunnar Berger, who argues that the Windows 8 experience will be “bad” on a non-touch-enabled device.

I have one question. Why does anyone pay attention to Gartner, which has been trolling IT professionals for as long as I’ve been in the industry?

Just for grins, I went back and looked up some of Gartner’s more spectacularly confident and wrong-headed predictions. Here are some of their greatest hits. Er, I mean misses.

Best claim chowder you’re going to taste all day. One of the gems Bott cites is this one from 2006: “Apple Should License the Mac to Dell”, which called for Apple to abandon the hardware business (and which earned them Jackass of the Week honors). Clearly, they smoke the good stuff at Gartner.

★ Monday, 23 July 2012