

Gartner tells IT shops that it's 'game over' for BlackBerry - josteink
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9242767/Update_Gartner_tells_IT_shops_that_it_s_game_over_for_BlackBerry

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S_A_P
I work in an industry where Gartner used to maintain a magic quadrant. (C/ETRM
software) I worked closely with the marketing director to fill out the
questionnaire that Gartner sent. Iirc it was about 20 questions that asked
about key functionality and product road maps. It literally was about 2 days
(8 working hours) of back and forth between marketing, myself, product
managers and c-level employees.

They filled this sheet out, sent it off and forgot about it. From 20 pretty
generic questions that ended up being answered with some pretty fluffy and
marketing jargon laden bullshit, Gartner is able to tell if someone is a
market leading software vendor or not. It's total bullshit. It turns out that
it was just 1 guy doing this quadrant as when he left, Gartner stopped doing
it(at least that is what I e been told)

The company I worked at even sent 8 people to the Gartner conference in an
effort to boost visibility and hopefully quadrant status. I can't believe
anyone would take it seriously, let alone base a purchasing decision from it.

~~~
mathattack
I view them like the ratings agencies. They exist because someone has to fill
a void. For the ratings agencies, there is a void where people who don't have
a lot of financial knowledge are placed on top of large sums of money. One
could argue they shouldn't, but they're there, so they need someone to give
them guidance on investments. Gartner exists similarly because there is a void
in organizations and their knowledge of technology. In the absence of Gartner,
the un-tech-savvy CIOs just buy from whoever they play golf with. We could
argue that all CIOs should be hands on current in all the relevant technology,
but that's not the world we live in.

An interesting question would be, "What's the return on investment in getting
into the right quadrant?" It truly is a marketing decision that should be
compared alongside advertising, conference attendance and direct mail.

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sambeau
Serious Question: Why does anyone care what Gartner think?

I have worked with companies that cared more about getting into some quadrant
of some Gartner graph than they cared about the quality of their products.

Is Gartner more than just a corporate badge? Do they purely provide the wall
for the giant corporate pissing contest?

~~~
mbesto
To answer your question - Yes, they do.

I call this "shifting the burden of responsibility"[1] and it basically boils
down to this - imagine you're an IT manager and your boss says "Should we
support Blackberry anymore?" Who is the authority to say whether the answer is
Yes or No to this question? If you (the IT manager) think you are...What
happens when you're wrong? Hence why you simply shift this over to someone or
some organization who has established themselves as the authority.

This is why the analyst industry exists.

[1] - [http://www.techdisruptive.com/2013/07/18/shifting-the-
burden...](http://www.techdisruptive.com/2013/07/18/shifting-the-burden-of-
responsibility/)

~~~
sambeau
In my experience it isn't the IT managers who trust Gartner —it's the IT-
managers' managers.

Is this just because non-IT managers don't trust what IT managers say?

If so then this is a case of shifting the burden of responsibility of
“shifting the burden of responsibility”. Non-IT managers blame IT managers for
their use of analysts as a comfort blanket.

I realise there are analysts for all kinds of industry but I can't think of
another example where analysts wield the kind of power that Gartner hold over
the IT industry.

~~~
mbesto
I think you're slightly taking my example too pedantically. In any case...

> _Is this just because non-IT managers don 't trust what IT managers say?_

Yes, but the non-IT managers are even more uninformed. Everyone at some point
is to blame, unless you can point that blame outside of your organization.
Imagine this conversation going all the way up to the CEO. "But Gartner said
to stop supporting Blackberry" holds some good value to her.

> _Non-IT managers blame IT managers for their use of analysts as a comfort
> blanket._

I'm sort of confused by this comment, is this a statement you're trying to
make? Either way, as you said, the key decision maker is usually the non-IT
managers (usually at VP level or higher).

> _I realise there are analysts for all kinds of industry but I can 't think
> of another example where analysts wield the kind of power that Gartner hold
> over the IT industry._

I don't know many other industries that (1) have so many solutions (2)
available to them globally (3) at so many different price points (4) with such
a complexity of features. Finance rings a bell, but the competition is _much_
higher.

Some good comments about the woes of the analyst industry in big tech:
[http://blog.softwareinsider.org/2013/08/09/personal-log-
the-...](http://blog.softwareinsider.org/2013/08/09/personal-log-the-sad-
state-of-the-industry-analyst-business-and-the-need-for-a-code-of-ethics/)

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rdl
I am kind of pissed that Microsoft hasn't been hitting the Enterprise Phone
hard. I have a lot of people I consult for on mobile sec stuff who are still
on bb7, never will BYOD, and who need something essentially bb7 equivalent for
secure email/messaging/etc. They were willing to tolerate RIM as a partner due
to the extensive security audits and certification of the platform, but
probably wouldn't trust Apple or Google with the ability to push arbitrary
code to their devices.

~~~
Terretta
With iOS 7 supporting per-app VPN, you can couple that with corporate
provisioning to require particular apps for company email, messaging, file
markup, _and_ require those apps to only work over the company VPN.

What's more, given that Microsoft is known to have shipped backdoored code,
and known to have been the fastest to cooperate with NSA etc., it's not clear
where your last sentence comes from, that someone would trust MSFT code before
Apple and Google code.

That said, yes, Windows phone absolutely should have had an enterprise push to
appeal to the IT crowd depending on Active Directory, Exchange, Sharepoint,
etc. They should have sidestepped the iOS vs Android battle and defined a
"blue ocean" strategy with two prongs: (1) corporate/enterprise (targeting IT
departments and white collar wage earners), (2) feature/smart phones
(targeting kids in those households).

While iOS and Android (as seen in Apple, Samsung, and Droid adverts) are
competing to be fiercely individualist choices, MSFT should have gone after
groups/communities/companies/families. Groupware is a recognized Microsoft
strength.

~~~
rdl
The kind of people still using BB7 (in the US/UK/CA are likely to strongly
trust NSA, so MS NSA backdoors aren't really a problem; NSA IA review is a
feature for them.

I agree iOS 7 has the best security and security functionality right now of
iOS or Android, but there isn't a single out of the box solution which does
what BES/bb7 provides. Setting up Apple's config manager is a pain, and the
commercial MDM products aren't amazing.

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danielweber
It's amazing that BlackBerry can sell almost 6 million phones a quarter and be
considered a failure.

Sure, other products vastly outsell it and it's been "defeated" in a product
category it created. But in most other markets moving 6 million units of a
product that costs over $100, in just 3 months, ought to mean you get to stick
around indefinitely, at least as a niche player.

~~~
brk
Maybe... What is their sales trend though? I haven't bothered to look into
myself, but based on what we see and hear, my assumption would be that BB
sales are going down.

There are still lots of legacy BB shops, and those shops are still hiring new
employees, replacing lost or outdated phones and so forth. BB may be selling 6
million units per quarter, but if they are losing marketshare rapidly (as they
appear to be), those sales most likely aren't worth much. Additionally, if
they are staffed up for 20 million units a month (eg: tons of office space,
lots of personnel), then 6 million is not enough to sustain the company. We've
already seen signs of this in the form of massive layoffs.

Also, this isn't a market where you can stagnate, so they won't be around
indefinitely unless they have the R&D team to keep pace with new trends, plus
create a couple of innovations.

~~~
gnaffle
That's exactly the right question to ask. When they were selling 15M phones a
year or two ago, selling 5-6M M phones today is a disaster, especially when
the trend continues downward after releasing the BB10 which was supposed to
"save" BlackBerry. Then add the fact that they had to take a big loss on
unsold BB10 inventory, and the picture is pretty bleak.

They can probably stick around for a long time as a niche player, but that's
not going to provide the kind of big returns that the investors expect.

~~~
danielweber
"Bad deal for investors" is something I can't disagree with. I sure wouldn't
put any money in them.

This doesn't mean that they're going to go out of business and everyone needs
to race to abandon ship, though.

~~~
gnaffle
No, but the outlook is uncertain. There's a history of solid mobile platforms
being abandoned much more quickly than most would expect: Symbian, WM6, Palm,
Sidekick (including the spectacular Microsoft data deletion screwup), so to
not make contingency / transition plans now when BlackBerry is officially up
for sale would be irresponsible.

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jpswade
[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9242808/BlackBerry_re...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9242808/BlackBerry_responds_to_Gartner_s_call_for_clients_to_ditch_BB_products_)

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oellegaard
What a joke. It's like stating AltaVista is 'game over'.

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andor
Classy move, Gartner. Did you just move from the bullshit quadrant to the
racket quadrant?

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beedogs
Has Netcraft confirmed it too?

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fvrghl
Who will take over enterprise phones now? Microsoft will definitely try, but
how will Apple and Android compete for this space?

~~~
gnaffle
Android and Apple already do compete for this space. They both provide
provisioning, encrypted storage, VPN, exchange support and remote wipe, and
that's pretty much what 90% of the enterprise needs.

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jlebrech
i'd buy an android Q10 in a heartbeat.

~~~
Pxtl
Z10, too. BB10 devices are beautiful, they're just duct-taped to a dead-end OS
and came too late to save the company. Also, going with non-discoverable
gesture-based navigation was a doomed idea. I get what they're going for, but
when you're scrambling to keep your users you don't want to create that kind
of huge barrier for them.

If only. Even if BBOS was forked from an old version of android (like, 2.3 or
something) you'd still have some baseline of compatibility, a place to build
an ecosystem.

~~~
jlebrech
they could have made BBOS a fork like kindle os is.

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mbubb
What does the President use these days?

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chayesfss
Hey Gartner, Dell dude got busted selling pot...

