Nancy and I would love to put the perception (and if there is one, the reality) of pay-to-play to bed forever, but I suspect that it will be impossible to convince all the people, all the time. While much of the time what we hear is just noise, we take all allegations very seriously - substantial time and money (including our compensation) is devoted to ensuring that Gartner is operating in an ethical, objective and independent manner. Be assured, we will investigate suspicious activities within any part of Gartner and infractions of Gartner's Code of Ethical Conduct could subject the associate to termination of employment.

Frankly, aside from the occasional comment on a blog or backroom chatter, we have not had any vendors complain to the Office of the Ombudsman directly since the Office opened in September 2004. So my message is, if anyone believes that they know of a legitimate issue, please step forward regardless of your client status. You can come to me directly, and I will personally investigate the situation. And I want to better understand what the issues are; does pay-to-play mean the more you pay the better your position in the MQ, or that without being a client you can't get any coverage or schedule a briefing with an analyst, or all of the above?

In addition, I will do some internal investigation looking at our client and non-client lists to see what conclusions we can draw about research coverage, and I will share what I can about those conclusions with you within the limits of our privacy policy. I probably won't name names, but I can tell you what patterns I find. But beware this may take some time, and, since a large percentage of vendors are already Gartner clients, this analysis may not reveal anything meaningful.

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As a client, I appreciate the fact that Gartner has established the Office of the Ombudsman and that you are proactively working to publicly address conflict of interest issues regarding Gartner’s financial relationship with vendor clients. My perception is that the Gartner research team walks a fine line similar to a university research organization and is constantly challenged in how to allow researchers to move back and forth between academia and the marketplace without compromising their integrity. We periodically see the ethics issue blow up in the face of research universities due to the overlap of drug research, government regulation, and pharmaceutical company funding. I appreciate the fact that you are on the job and reporting on this issue internally and externally. That is reassuring and is a valuable focus. Keep raising the visibility of the conflict.

The issue of a pay for play is a popular misconception. As a former Gartner analyst, it's one I still have to refute when discussing my past experiences. In my experience, I never saw any evidence of there being a pay for play environment- whether it came to written research and vendor positioning or advice given to enterprises when doing their due diligence.

A good example of my experience:

As part of a consulting engagement, I worked with other analysts and consulting advising a Gartner client who was a vendor that I tracked in my coverage area. This vendor paid a handsome amount for the reporting, analysis and advice that pertained to their marketing initiatives. Subsequently, I also spoke at sales meeting of theirs as well as their investor's conference.

When it came time to author the popular "Magic Quadrant" document for this market, our analysis concluded that this vendor was a "Visionary" and not the "Leader" they had hoped to be. Many fireworks ensued, with the vendor claiming that we had a "relationship" and had paid alot of money for our services. In fact, the CEO of their company went to my manager and even the Gartner CEO at the time with this same argument asking that their position be changed (based on their relationship as a Gartner client, not technical merit).

I was asked to defend my reasoning to my peers and the vendor.

Bottom line: No one from Gartner asked that I change the vendors position and it remained the same.

As an independent IT consultant, I am often asked to provide an "autonomous" review of existing research for clients, both vendors and IT consumers. I can confirm for you that there is a strong (perhaps prevalent)perception that your research is based on "pay to play" and I have been in the audience of numerous conferences and panels where this has been the topic of frequent "jokes" from panelists - many of whom are familar with your work over time. While there is a McCarthy-esque tinge to the accusations (impossible to contradict without confirming the initial accusation), it is nonetheless an important issue for us all to address.

The issue is one of perception. Your strides in the area of published standards, ethics (and even the creation of the Obmudsman role) are good, though partial, responses. As with any perception issue, it is a breach of trust that requires time in order to (re)introduce credibility. Broad marketplace impressions are very difficult to counter on a case-by-case basis, though you should continue to address them as they arise.

For me, it seems to be a symptom of a larger problem: the proprietary nature of intellectual property in a very competitive marketplace. It seems to me that the larger solution, therefore, is to courageously address what Donald Tapscott calls the creation of an innovation web, the willingness to "give up IP for the sake of new business models and revenue streams."

We each maintain dozens (!) of memberships, passwords, and pay dues in multiple directions, all in order to somehow keep abreast of the deluge of semi-pertinent information we need to do our jobs. If we, as consumers, were convinced that profit was not the final order of the day, but merely a component of the overall goal of providing knowledge, it would help address lingering "pay to play" concerns that otherwise will remain in the shadows for all of the major IT info suppliers.

If you really want to dispel the rumors it's easy. Stop taking payments from technology vendors. Give them the necessary pieces of your research for free. Short of that, publish the percentage of revenue coming from technology vendors vs. end-users.

Better still, be open about which vendors on MQs are clients and which ones are not. It may be true that 50% of the cool vendors are not clients but what about on the MQs.