Analysis, Discourse and Influence
Some interesting Analyst backlash around Radicati, which has produced some of the better messaging reports.
Earlier today, I read about Radicati recommending Yahoo Mail over Gmail. And my first thought was "yeay for us!." But then I realized how stupid that was. Gmail is a freaking BETA PRODUCT. If they'd recommended the opposite, I'd wonder what they were smoking.The fact that they're charging $40 to read that report only adds to the stupidity of it all.
I really hope that the PR folks at Yahoo get this and don't start using such recommendations as a form of ammunition against Google and/or Gmail. It would just make us look stupid, and we really don't need anymore of that.
Ed Brill of IBM has been taking them to task about a different report (.pdf):
With good reason...
My view is that I'll risk my own credibility to shine a spotlight where needed -- in this case, I believe the exposure of this document to a wide audience actually serves me much more than it does my competition. For those of you reading it directly, you can form your own opinion of the report. For those you will need to influence, including management that might never read the full report, you are now prepared to discuss and easily rebut the report thoughtfully (even moreso when IBM's response is published). How does that hurt my credibility?
The report predicts demise in messaging, contrary to others. Ed is trying follow a money trail to Microsoft. They posted a response to Ed Brill, but they didn't link to him and vice versa. And IBM responds.
I point all this out because we have gone from a general distrust of analyst projections post-Boom -- back to case-by-case due dilligence. This kind of back and forth used to occur in email, but now its public and impacts influence.
Radicati would do well to start blogging, first inside (plug).
