Magic Quadrant (MQ) is a series of

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers. It involves understanding who they are and what they need. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining com ...

reports published by research and advisory firm

Gartner Gartner, Inc. is an American research and advisory firm focusing on business and technology topics. Gartner provides its products and services through research reports, conferences, and consulting. Its clients include large corporations, gover ...

that rely on proprietary qualitative

data analysis Data analysis is the process of inspecting, Data cleansing, cleansing, Data transformation, transforming, and Data modeling, modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Da ...

methods to demonstrate market trends, such as direction, maturity and participants. Their analyses are conducted for several specific technology industries and are updated every 1–2 years: once an updated report has been published, its predecessor is "retired".

Rating

Gartner rates vendors upon two criteria: ''completeness of

vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...

'' and ''ability to execute''. Completeness of vision – Reflects the vendor's innovation, and whether the vendor drives or follows the market. Ability to execute – Summarizes factors such as the vendor's financial viability, market responsiveness, product development, sales channels and customer base. The two component scores lead to a vendor position in one of four quadrants: ; Leaders Vendors in the "Leaders" quadrant have the highest composite scores for their ''completeness of vision'' and ''ability to execute''. A vendor in the Leaders quadrant has the market share, credibility, and marketing & sales capabilities needed to drive the acceptance of new technologies. These vendors demonstrate a clear understanding of market needs, they are innovators and thought leaders, and they have well-articulated plans that customers and prospects can use when designing their infrastructures and strategies. In addition, they have a presence in the five major geographical regions, consistent financial performance, and broad platform support. ; Challengers A vendor in the "Challengers" quadrant participates in the market, and executes well enough to be a serious threat to vendors in the Leaders quadrant. They have strong products, as well as sufficiently credible market position and resources to sustain continued growth. Financial viability is not an issue for vendors in the Challengers quadrant, but they lack the size and influence of vendors in the Leaders quadrant. ; Visionaries A vendor in the "Visionaries" quadrant delivers innovative products that address operationally or financially important end-user problems at a broad scale, but has not yet demonstrated the ability to capture market share or sustainable profitability. Visionary vendors are frequently privately held companies and acquisition targets for larger, established companies. The likelihood of acquisition often reduces the risks associated with installing their systems. ; Niche Players Vendors in the "Niche Players" quadrant are often narrowly focused on specific market or vertical segments. This quadrant may also include vendors that are adapting their existing products to enter the market under consideration, or larger vendors having difficulty developing and executing on their vision. Gartner Critical Capabilities complement Magic Quadrant analysis to offer deeper insight into the products and services offered by multiple vendors by a comparative analysis that scores competing products or services against a set of critical differentiators identified by Gartner. Gartner has periodically ended Magic Quadrant listings for IT Service Management, Web Content Management, and other industries as those markets have fully matured or other factors rendered the analytic framework inapplicable.

Criticism

The Magic Quadrant, and analysts in general, skew the market: according to research, by applying their methodologies to describe a market, they change that marketplace to fit their tools. Another criticism is that open source vendors are not considered sufficiently by analysts like Gartner, as has been published in an online discussion between a VP from Talend and a German Research VP from Gartner. Gartner was the target of a

federal law Federal law is the body of law created by the federal government of a country. A federal government is formed when a country has a central government as well as regional governments, such as subnational states or provinces, each with constituti ...

suit (filed May 29, 2009) from software vendor ZL Technologies challenging the "legitimacy" of Gartner's Magic Quadrant rating system. Gartner filed a motion to dismiss by claiming

First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

protection since it contends that its MQ reports contain "pure opinion", which legally means opinions that are not based on fact. The court threw out the ZL case because it lacked a specific complaint. The decision was upheld on appeal.

References

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External links

Gartner Magic Quadrant

An alphabetical list of the latest Magic Quadrant documents
Research Methodology Information science

Rating

Criticism

See also

References

External links