Obviously this does not apply to the reputable sources of analysis like Redmonk. But aren’t there a heck of a lock of analysts that are merely actors that read a vendor’s script for the right price? It often seems like popularity contests where the analysts define the status quo of industry segments based on which contestants pay them the most money.

From reports that seem to more prominently feature the vendors that have paid relationships, to the conferences held where only speaker submissions from paid clients are considered – to the analysts who rarely even talk to vendors that aren’t paying clients. It’s impossible to know just how pervasive all of these conditions are, but if you are a vendor who has held audience with a lot of industry analysts, you see a lot of subversive tactics and get cynical about it very quickly.

More in line with the context of the original thread, I’ve always wondered why the analysts who make predictions don’t more publicly revisit those predictions down the line to demonstrate how true / untrue they wound up being. As annoying and elitist as I found The Industry Standard of old … I think their new content focus on predictions is actually quite innovative and should be embraced in similar fashion by industry analysts that make market forecasts. Then we could start to have more of a focus on the individual analysts who have great track records, and a more transparent way to analyze the analysts.

all of that said, i understand the fact that many CIOs are by circumstance forced to focus on the present, and that they’re often unable to embrace risk (read: innovation) because of an inability to sell it to a conservative CEO or board.

more, i’m of the belief that the history provided is important, and also that balance is desirable. it is unfortunately the case that backward looking analysis currently dominates the research world, but optimally, technologists will have research available that indicates where things have been, where things are, and where things are going. meaning that we need all of the research, even if i don’t subscribe to some of it.

it is indeed difficult to predict the future: impossibly so, in many cases. but often we’re not actually talking about the future, as William Gibson reminds, us, we’re talking about the present, which is far more predictable. if not provable to the satisfaction of conservative enterprises.

In my opinion, what we need to do though is provide Analysis, with hard real tangible data, back to these on-premise guys, such that they understand and buy these off-premise services. This in turn will help to fund the whole “ahead of curve” ecosystem.

I say this because it’s not just drawing conclusions about the future that’s hard — it’s equally hard to draw general conclusions from specific data. The two are parallel.