In our last issue we reported on rumors that are circulating about the Gartner Magic Quadrant" and possible grade inflation" in an effort to garner more vendor fees (analyst days, Web reprint rights, conference sponsorship...) during the recession. The rumor is that more vendors are being anointed as leaders which potentially can generate $25K to $100K in additional fees. We, of course, don't believe these rumors — we don't think those English majors in Connecticut are that devious — but just in case we thought we'd ask our readers for some input — sort of like an open source review of MQ inflation. We received several responses from our mention of this topic in our last newsletter (shown below) but we need more. One shows a slight increase in percent of total companies in the leaders' quadrant but not enough to substantiate the rumor. The other is more convincing — nearly doubling the number of companies placed in the top right quadrant over a 12 month period. But two data points are not enough — we need more and are hoping that you'll contribute whatever you can.
Magic Quadrant Inflation Summary
