---
title: The Email from Gartner
date: 2006-07-14T19:36:44Z
modified: 2006-07-14T19:36:44Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/the-email-from-gartner/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 661
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2006-07-14T19:36:44Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

Thanks everyone for [your comments](http://www.redmonk.com/MT-2.661/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1897) on the Gartner cease and desist. I greatly appreciate the support. It seems the old [David and Goliath pattern](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/07/fear_of_a_small.html) still has some legs. As Seth Godin said yesterday:

> “Just as asymmetrical warfare has turned our geopolitical system upside down, the same thing is happening in the marketing world. While it’s tempting to spend all your time stamping out the little enemies, the architecture of the system favors a strategy of embracing and leveraging your happy constituents instead.”

Gartner should probably heed this advice. Let me tell you: there are nothing better than happy constituencies.

It seems [the missing link](http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/001897.html) is now widely distributed. You almost wonder if Gartner planned this all as extra publicity for its new BI quadrant…

[David Rossiter](http://analystinsight.blogspot.com/) at Sunesis [turned up something interesting](http://analystinsight.blogspot.com/2006/07/james-governor-told-off-by-gartner.html); I am increasingly wondering whether the note to me was _actually intended for SAS_, which has apparently been posting the URL openly on some online fora.

So what did Gartner actually say? The mail is short and not so sweet, if slightly less aggressive than it felt when I first read it: one reason I took it seriously was the pointer to a copyright policy at the bottom of the email, which is of course a legal instrument. I was also disappointed that when I replied to the email I heard nothing back. That said, its also important to say that the term “cease and desist” is evidently open to some question. My C&D was not written by an attorney, and if that’s part of your definition, then it was not a C&D at all, so much as a slightly threatening email. According to Wikipedia “A cease-and-desist letter can be sent by anyone, although typically they are drafted by a lawyer.” What really got me however, was that I wasn’t _asked_ to do something, I was _ordered_ to.

> Mr. Governor,
> 
> Recently, the following blog post from July 4, 2006 came to my attention: http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/index.html. In it, you link directly to the following report: http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/sas/vol2/article1/article1.html. This report is a reprint which a vendor has purchased for its own use. Therefore, your link constitutes an unauthorized use, and it must be removed immediately.
> 
> Please confirm receipt of this email, as well as the link’s immediate removal.

Prize for best idea for what comes next – [Dana Gardner](http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gardner/) over at Interarbor Solutions suggested we sell the link on eBay, and find out what its actually worth…

I also just want to clarify that the comment “from Gartner” on my last post wasn’t really from Gartner. It was a hoax so I deleted it at the request of the hoaxer. It seems there is a whole lot of redaction going on…

So thanks again for your support, everyone.

[redmonk](http://technorati.com/tag/redmonk), [gartner](http://technorati.com/tag/gartner), [cease+desist](http://technorati.com/tag/cease+desist), [copyright](http://technorati.com/tag/copyright), [sunesis](http://technorati.com/tag/sunesis), [SAS](http://technorati.com/tag/SAS), [Dana+Gardner](http://technorati.com/tag/Dana+Gardner)