Gartner
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Type | Public (NYSE: IT) |
---|---|
Founded | 1979 |
Headquarters | Stamford, Connecticut |
Key people | Gene Hall (Chairman and CEO) Christopher J. Lafond (CFO). |
Industry | Research |
Products | Research Consulting Events |
Revenue | $1.279 billion (2008) |
Net income | $103.9 million (2008) |
Employees | 4,000 (2008) |
Website | www.gartner.com |
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is an information technology research and advisory firm headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. It was known as The Gartner Group until 2001.[1]
Gartner clients include some large corporations and government agencies as well as technology companies and the investment community like BT, HP,Wall street Journal etc. The company consists of Research, Executive Programs, Consulting and Events. Founded in 1979, Gartner has 4,000 associates,[2] including 1,200 research analysts and consultants in 75 countries worldwide.[citation needed]
Contents |
[edit] Business areas
[edit] Research coverage
The areas of technology that the company includes within its scope is organized in three ways: research by market, research by topics and research by industries.
[edit] Gartner research
Gartner provides research analysis and advice for IT professionals, technology companies and the investment community in the form of reports and briefings, as well as peer networking services and membership programs designed specifically for CIOs and other senior executives. Following a publisher's business model -- "write once, sell many" -- Research operates on high gross margins and is Gartner's most profitable business unit.
[edit] Gartner consulting
Aligned to Gartner research are its core consulting capabilities. This allows a further level of support for Gartner clients in the application of the Gartner research. The consulting arm is able to offer Industry/Sector related advice and support in Government, Retail, Media & Telecommunications, and Financial Services. It also provides more generic cross sector services encompassing Strategy, Technology and Application Management, Programme and Portfolio Management, IT/IS Process and Performance Optimisation, Sourcing & Vendor Management and benchmarking. The consulting division employs just under 500 people globally with the bulk of these operating within the US market.
[edit] Gartner executive programs
Gartner sells Executive Programs (EXP) memberships to Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and other senior executives in a wide range of technologies. An EXP membership leverages Gartner's services in ways that are specific to the CIOs needs, and offers members-only communities for peer-based collaboration. Members also receive advice and counsel from a personal relationship manager. At June, 2008, Gartner's various Executive Programs had a membership of approximately 3,700 CIOs and other senior IT leaders.
[edit] Gartner events
The Gartner Symposium/ITxpo[3] is the IT industry's largest conference.[citation needed] Gartner Symposium, offered each spring and fall in various international locations, is a strategic conference for senior IT and business professionals. Symposium is combined with ITxpo, an exhibition where the latest technology products and solutions are demonstrated. It has been hosted in Sydney, Australia; Cannes, France; San Francisco, California; Barcelona, Spain; Orlando, Florida; Tokyo, Japan; and Cape Town, South Africa.
Gartner also organizes regional conferences in over 65 countries on specialized topics such as: outsourcing, customer relationship management, application integration and business intelligence. In 2007, Gartner held 78 events which attracted 44,216 participants and produced revenues of $180.8 million.[4]
[edit] Company history
The company was founded in 1979 by the eponymous Gideon Gartner. Originally a private company, the Gartner Group was launched publicly in the 1980s, then acquired by Saatchi & Saatchi, the London-based advertising agency, and then acquired in 1990 by some of its executives, with funding from Bain Capital and Dun & Bradstreet. In 2001 the name was simplified to Gartner.
In the course of its growth, Gartner has acquired numerous companies providing related services, including most notably Real Decisions (which became Gartner Measurement, now part of Gartner's consulting division), and Gartner Dataquest (Gartner's market research firm). It has also acquired a number of direct competitors, including NewScience (which Gartner acquired in the late 1990s) and arch-rival Meta Group (acquired in 2005).
The Chairman and CEO is Gene Hall (since August 2004). Business performance under Hall's management has been considerably stronger than under his predecessor Michael Fleisher.
[edit] Competitors
Gartner has several competitors, including:
- AMR Research
- ABI Research
- Canalys
- CMS Watch
- Computer Economics
- Corporate Executive Board, USA
- Cutter Consortium
- Dell'Oro Group website
- Forrester Research
- Frost & Sullivan
- IDC
- Informa (through various subsidiaries of Datamonitor)
- Info-Tech Research Group
- Strategy Analytics
- Yankee Group
[edit] Press coverage
Gartner research is frequently quoted by the business and IT press on a broad range of issues. Examples include:
- Financial Times: You can believe the Hype Cycle's take on technology, Philip Stafford, May 30, 2008 Financial Times
- Wall Street Journal: Business Technology Blog: Windows (Slowly) Collapsing Under Own Weight, By Ben Worthen, April 11, 2008 Wall Street Journal
- New York Times: Smartphones Now Ringing for Women, Laura M. Holson, June 10, 2008 New York Times
- their September 2001 advisory that, in light of increasing internet worm attacks such as Code Red and Nimda, companies using Microsoft IIS for web hosting should switch to alternative products,[5]
- their October 2006 statement that they believed Apple Computer should abandon its hardware business, instead licensing it to alternative PC manufacturers, such as Dell,[6]
- their December 2006 prediction that blogging activity would reach a peak during 2007,[7] and that Windows Vista would be the last major release of the operating system.[8]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "EDGAR Form 10-Q". Securities and Exchange Commission. February 14, 2001. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/749251/000095012301001450/y45550e10-q.txt. Retrieved on 2006-12-16.
- ^ Associate is Gartner's term for a directly employed staff member. This runs counter to another accepted usage where an associate is (often) a self employed consultant working under the umbrella of a large brand consultancy
- ^ Symposium/ITxpo Worldwide
- ^ Gartner Annual Report 2007
- ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/09/24/ditch_microsoft_iis_now_says/
- ^ Gartner: Apple should quit hardware business - ZDNet.co.uk
- ^ BBC NEWS | Technology | Blogging 'set to peak next year'
- ^ http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6143800.html