[techpop10]

"Enterprise buyers use third parties to buy software. They consult Gartner, Forrester, and others to establish trust in vendors. These research agencies diligence software products directly and through surveys. This is the reason analyst relations are so important. Presence on the magic quadrant confers trustworthiness."

Strongly disagree on this point. With the exception of 451 Research, the major analyst firms do not share any of their research methodologies. Did they interview/research 10 orgs or 1,000? You don't know. The biases of the research analysts is also suspect. At Gartner, many of their analysts haven't actually used the software they are covering. As a consequence, we have no idea about the depth of their research at all.

The role of these analysts is to give C-level executives a "cover your a$$" excuse if things go wrong with the software. From my experience, most technical level decision makers rely more on their peers to develop trust than on analysts.

[pidg]

Everything is ass-covering. The "trust" tech marketing builds is to say "I trust these guys won't lose me my job", not "I trust their software works exactly as advertised".