By Howard Solomon
Assistant Editor, NetworkWorld Canada
IT research companies have a somewhat incestuous relationship with their customers, the vendors and businesses that hire them for independent advice.
One of the latest incidents took place earlier this month when Nortel Networks assembled some reporters in Toronto to feed us a light breakfast and an IDC Canada study showing that we are not merely in a world of increasing connectivity but one of mobile “hyperconnectivity.” The implication being that if Nortel knows this, it’s products are somehow better prepared than competitors’.
Now, a good many of you likely know “hyperconnectivity” has been a marketing phrase of Nortel for at least a year. So why a report? The company’s CTO told reporters that it wanted to verify its strategy by hiring IDC to prove it.
Hmmm. Would the report have been released if it didn’t prove Nortel’s marketing?
Well, good for Nortel for being honest on who paid it.
But what emerged was a 15-page document that, to me, proved that the sun rises in the East. I mean, everyone knows people are using more cellphones, smart phones, laptops, MP3 players, GPS devices, GameBoys and wirelessly-connected foot massagers just by looking at sales figures. And the reason is obvious: the cost of connectivity is going down and will continue to go down in the foreseeable future.
I suppose IDC does what people hire it to do, and Nortel was merely doing what other IT vendors have been doing for decades: A little wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Everyone does it. This month, for example Cisco released an Ovum study it paid for that “confirmed” – as if it needed confirming – that businesses are increasingly looking to managed service providers for managed network services.
This report, the press release respectfully tells us, was “commissioned by Cisco Systems as part of its on-going commitment to enabling service providers.” So it was a public service?
This sort of nonsense doesn’t fool IT or network managers. Hopefully, it doesn’t fool their CEOs, either.So a word to the people who run the hardware and software companies: You can make better use of marketing dollars than this.
If you've been bothered by vendor use, or abuse, of IT research companies, let us know.