Gartner Magic Quadrant 2008 Now Available

If you have not seen it, the new Gartner Magic Quadrant for Information Access - their name for intranet and customer facing search - has been published and is available for viewing on the Gartner web site thanks to a pointer from Microsoft's Analyst Relations page.

The big story, one which must have them fuming in England, is that Autonomy has dropped down a bit, and the combined Microsoft-FAST offerings have moved up a bit. This puts Autonomy a bit higher up on the 'Completeness of Vision' scale - by a few pixels - but a decent quarter-inch below Microsoft on the 'Ability to Execute' scale. Endeca, IBM, ZyLAB and Vivisimo squeaked into the upper right quadrant, while Google moved right to the link splitting the 'Challengers' from the 'Leaders', but ever so close - one could say the Google dot is on the line. It's odd that Google is not higher on the 'Ability to Execute' scale, since that usually means how well funded the company is. Perhaps they are looking at the budget/sales for only the Google appliance; but even then, Steve Arnold's numbers put them above the others on the scale.

Some excellent search products fell off the list this year, as Gartner has changed their methodology. The products we feel still qualify for the report include Dieselpoint, SLI Systems, and X1 Technologies, as well as newcomer Attivio. The article has more details. And as the con artist Fagan said in the play base don Dicken's Oliver Twist, '...if you happen to pass the Tower of London, have a look at the Crown Jewels'.

Comments

[Anders Online Marketing]

I am working with marketing in Denmark and is searching for inspiration in the digital world. Thanks for inspiration

[Daniel Tunkelang]

Not to be too "squeaky" but Gartner has placed Endeca in the upper right quadrant since 2005.
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Yes... using the term 'squeaked in' makes it sound like they are newly in the top right quadrant. I guess a better term would have been 'just inside of the upper right quadrant'. Thanks!! mbk

[Thomas June]

This Quadrant is the worst I've ever seen from Gartner.... Frankly, are you ok with what you saw on the market?
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Well, the major analysts all seem to have migrated many of the engines into what Gartner calls the upper right quadrant. Hadley Reynolds, of FAST Search/Microsoft, pointed this out to Leslie Owens of Forrester - but as she pointed out in her defense, the reports follow reasonable and well-defined methodologies. Still, there seem to be alot of unhappy users of search in the upper right quadrant. Read our previous post at http://www.enterprisesearchblog.com/2008/05/technology-or-m.html, Technology or Methodology, for more background, and stay tuned - I think we've hit a nerve!