Comments for The IIAR Blog

Comment on The hype cycle of Vendor Briefing Requests by dominicpannell

dominicpannell — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:27:49 +0000

Very nice piece. Sadly, it’s a pretty accurate summary of the time-wasting vendor briefing process. Good tips at the end – I wonder if any analyst firms take heed.

Comment on Gartner gets the IDEAs from Forrester by Lim Hui Ling

Lim Hui Ling — Fri, 11 May 2012 00:03:53 +0000

Definitely a lot of huge inaccuracies in this post. Having worked with both firms, Springboard went from start to exit in about 6 years and expanded to have the biggest Asia/Pacific footprint outside of Gartner and IDC. Ideas on the other hand has been a struggling analyst firm for over 20 years and has been trying to sell themselves for several years. Both firms have their strengths and weaknesses, but I felt this post was way to negative on Springboard and way to positive on Ideas- at the end of the day they are also very different firms.

Not knowing the exact purchase price, I do know the amount mentioned is amazingly off the range that I heard.

Comment on [Guest Post] The Secret Sauce and the Secret Sorcerers by Simon Levin by theskillsconnection

theskillsconnection — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:14:15 +0000

Thanks Stephen. It really was a great title for the book.

Comment on [Guest Post] The Secret Sauce and the Secret Sorcerers by Simon Levin by Stephen England

Stephen England — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:57:46 +0000

“Influencing the Influencers” – what a great name for a book – no, wait…
Seriously, good piece. EVERY new firm needs to justify their role in end user buying influence and clearly demonstrate their end user customer base, if they have one. And almost all do NOT.

Comment on More stars move into the Constellation by [Guest Post] The Secret Sauce and the Secret Sorcerers by Simon Levin « The IIAR Blog

Tue, 08 May 2012 07:10:13 +0000

[...] was at the London IIAR meeting in March, where R “Ray” Wang and his Constellation all-stars were agitating for radical change [...]

Comment on [GUEST POST] An Insider’s Guide to Technology Analysts by Pam Crain

Pam Crain — Fri, 04 May 2012 09:35:33 +0000

Fantastic article. One of the best articulations I’ve seen of what analysts do. Thanks!

Comment on Gartner gets the IDEAs from Forrester by gerryvz

gerryvz — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:58:21 +0000

Part of the appeal and value prop for IDEAS is its global reach, which is unusual for a firm of its size.

Indeed, I think IDEAS a nice complement to the recent Burton Group acquisition in terms of depth of focus, addressed audience, etc.

Comment on Gartner gets the IDEAs from Forrester by Ludovic Leforestier

Ludovic Leforestier — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:00:03 +0000

Indeed David, thanks for the correction.

Good comments Dave, my point about Burton and the increased reach that Gartner brings is still valid. As the comparison with Springboard, they were two vendor-oriented research firms based in APAC, that was the only point and mostly to find an angle to the post.

Comment on Gartner gets the IDEAs from Forrester by David R

David R — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:01:00 +0000

Ludovic

Possible typo? Do you mean really mean Canalys because you then link to a Current Analysis / Ideas distribution agreement…

I’m really not sure this has any implications for Canalys, which is largely focused on mobile devices and channel.

Comment on Gartner gets the IDEAs from Forrester by Dave Noble

Dave Noble — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 01:23:21 +0000

Ludo & all,
To compare Springboard & Ideas is completely misleading. The only thing the two firms have in common is a roughly similar geographic location. They have very different product portfolios, different research approaches, different skillsets, different heritages, and to look at this as an Asia/Pacific play for Gartner is also to miss the point.

Ideas has always been a “global” player in its own small way. It opened offices in the UK and the US very early in its history because that was the best way to reach its original clients, who were of course the major multinational hardware vendors – none of those in Asia then, & few now. It extended its presence in the US with the acquisition of DH Brown a few years ago, but has had limited success in Asia/Pacific outside of Australia.

Ideas has been on the market for many years. Every major firm, including Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Ovum & Springboard, has looked at buying Ideas at least once, and some of them more often. What is more interesting is why “now” was a better time to buy Ideas than any previous time – I suspect that the alignment with Burton you refer to may have something to do with it. The fact that Ideas finally made a decent profit in 2011 after several years of weak results may have also been attractive. But I seriously doubt that it had anything to do with increasing reach into emerging AP markets.

I think we also need to keep some perspective about the price & the value of this deal. Ideas listed as a low cap stock on the ASX in 2001 for $A1 a share, and for many years its shares languished in the low double-digit cents. So a $1.40 price for a $1 share over 11 years isn’t a huge return on investment. The bulk of Ideas shares (about 14 million outstanding) are held by private investors. Former CEO & current director Ian Birks owns about 1.8 million shares & current CEO Stephen Bowhill about 1.3 million according to their annual report. Founder John Tulloch also owns at least 900K shares according to documents filed as part of the takeover offer, and possibly more. I believe many of the senior management also have reasonable shareholdings. So they’ll all get a nice payday, but that $20 million is going to be spread a lot of directions, so I don’t see any of them retiring to south of France with a private yacht…

Personally, I’m enormously pleased for the Ideas guys because I’ve known them for years, they’re good analysts, & I know how hard they’ve worked to make the company viable – and saleable. I think this is a good deal for both Ideas & Gartner, but I don’t think it’s helpful to speculate this deal into something it’s not.

cheers,

Dave