Transparency

Here is another example of why I think that transparency for analysts should be required. Same thing with political contributions. I don't have any problem with anybody sponsoring any report or anyone contributing anything to a political party. I think that is free speech & I think that trying to control it (e.g., McCain Feingold) is a complete waste of time and just muddles things even more. Just make it black and white and in front of people is all I say.

I don't question the integrity of anyone per say, by making one's constituents known, however, there is a bit of omnipresent sunshine that generally forces people to be more honest and objective.

Until this is dealt with, there will always be people like me snickering about industry reports like this.

Via Simon Phipps. By the way - I don't think this is a problem just with Microsoft. Perhaps Sun could lead the charge on this type of thing by having a policy of having their name on all studies that they fund. Perhaps they already do this?

Perhaps I overestimated?

Even though the writing has been on the wall for years on WS-*, I predicted that it would take another 2 years before the industry echo chamber acknowledged this.

Is a Gartner Group VP (Nick Gall) a good enough shot across the bow? To many people, Gartner is a fairly credible information source.

Or maybe they are like Burton Group where they have some analysts that love it and some that hate it so in the end it is a wash (no offense Pete)?

I can only hope that this is the card that starts the house of cards falling down.

Via Bill de hOra

Update Saw this over on Simon Phipps. Obviously over the top - too funny though. Gartner certainly won't think this is true. I will have to defer to the Enterprise Architecture: Thought Leader on this topic. BTW that is a pure bold blog name ;).

I think analysts play an important role in the industry. I do think that you have to be a free thinker though and take what they say (and what anyone else says - especially me!) with a grain of salt. And who can honestly argue that transparency is a bad thing?