In a lawsuit filed this past May and heard last week by a San Francisco court, ZL Technologies claims that “Gartner’s use of their proprietary Magic Quadrant (MQ) is misleading and favors large vendors with large sales and marketing budgets over smaller innovators such as ZL that have developed higher performing products.”
Gartner MQs are frequently used by enterprise technology buyers to help develop their vendor shortlists and, as such, vendors seek preferred placement in the leader quadrant. Gartner’s “weighting” methodology emphasizes a number of criteria more highly than others under the headings of “Ability to Execute” (Product/Service, Marketing Execution, Customer Experience) and “Completeness of Vision” (including Marketing, Sales and Offering/Product Strategies).

Due to a recent court case brought by ZL Technologies against Gartner Group, our industry is once again debating the validity, influence and accuracy of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant (MQ) research.

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Regardless of what side of the argument you fall on, the Gartner MQ wields a tremendous influence over enterprise technology buyers. While no major enterprise-wide application or technology purchase, which can easily run into the millions of dollars, is made solely based on a Gartner report, many IT buyers use MQs to develop their vendor shortlists and to present findings to senior management.