NEC Stands Up to Gartner After Recent UC Magic Quadrant
The Gartner Magic Quadrant has faced some controversy over the years.
On one side of the coin, there are plenty of industry experts and communication enthusiasts that regard the Magic Quadrant to be an insightful guide into various IT markets. On the other hand, some companies and consumers alike feel that Gartner isn’t entirely fair with its ranking strategy.
After all, dozens of high-quality communications vendors fail to meet the standards required for a position on the Magic Quadrant, despite their innovative portfolios and commitment to customer service. As highly-regarded as the Quadrant might be, it’s worth noting that Gartner isn’t necessarily the gospel for Unified Communications, or any other IT sector for that matter – it’s just another analyst.
This year, after being pushed aside into the “niche” category for Unified Communications, NEC were keen to have their thoughts heard about the whole thing.
In a blog post on the NEC website, the company showed just how unhappy they were about Gartner placing them in the niche category. The company outlined the fact that Gartner’s criteria for the Unified Communications MQ seem to change suddenly – almost on a whim.
While you could argue that NEC is just bitter about the less than favourable placement in this year’s quadrant, it’s impossible to overlook the fact that they make some very valid points. For instance, NEC has many components in its business and portfolio that demonstrate its position as a visionary. It’s selling more phones than a lot of other vendors and incorporating disruptive technology like facial recognition into its devices too.
Another valid point that NEC made was the fact that their business caters fundamentally to mid-sized companies, while analysts such as Gartner frequently focus their attention on larger companies instead. This is something that’s easy to recognise when you see the consistent placement of bigger companies like Microsoft and Cisco throughout the MQ reports.
A Surprising Result for 2018
As Dave Michels of TalkingPointz noted in his “Quipz” newsletter, the final version of the MQ for this year “surprised many,” including NEC, who drew attention to the fact that they do meet all of the necessary criteria to appear in a higher section of the MQ portfolio.
Michels also outlined the fact that the 2018 report was a rare one for Gartner, as it involved a considerable change to the ranking between the pre-publishing final draft and the published release. Gartner decided to re-evaluate their findings this year, and the final version left people from various sectors with many questions.
In their blog, NEC even highlighted multiple industry analysts who believe that the Gartner Magic Quadrant might be “reaching the end of its usefulness,” stating that the current Quadrant uses measurements too narrow to adequately support the needs of an increasingly complex communications environment.
NEC isn’t the Only one With Complaints
NEC is far from the only company to ever push back against the decisions of the Magic Quadrant over the years. Back in 2009, ZL Technologies suggested that Gartner’s Magic Quadrant wasn’t as “legitimate” as it appeared and that Gartner gave special preference to companies offering bigger investments into the brand.
In 2014, NetScout also made claims of unfair competition against the Magic Quadrant, arguing that their portfolio hadn’t received the consideration it deserved.
While it’s easy for some people to say that these brands could simply ignore their placement on the Quadrant and move on, the prevalence of the report in the IT and communications environment means that failing to place on your respective quadrant could stop some companies from getting their cards on the table with a new client or customer.
The Gartner Quadrant: Just an Opinion?
Perhaps the biggest issue today is that some people are starting to look at the Gartner Magic Quadrant as indisputable evidence of the success or failure of different vendors. However, the truth is that it’s just one selection of thoughts from one small group of people. Dave Michels applauded NEC for pushing back, and noted that "ultimately, the MQ reflects the opinion of the authors”
In other words, it’s not as reliable as some people consider it to be.
While NEC might not be in the highest position for the UC sector of the Gartner Magic Quadrant, they’re still popular among Gartner’s peers. In fact, the organisation frequently gets an excellent rating on the Gartner Peer Insights portal.
At the end of the day, everyone has different opinions, and the Magic Quadrant is just one document designed to help people choose between the growing multitude of vendors in the unified communications space.
Source uctoday
Latest Jobs
-
- Information Security Manager- Global Sporting Brand. UK. £100,000
- London
- £100.000
-
REFCH8265 Identifier Project Information Security Manager- Global Sporting Brand. UK. £100,000 A unique and exclusive opportunity to DCL Search to provide leadership and guidance Information and IT Security practices to one of the most recognised sporting brands in the world. You will be the envy of your colleagues, friends and peers as you take the lead in developing and implementing a security strategy. You must have a blend of knowledge across information security and technical security and be able to build internal and external stakeholder relationships. To coin a well known phrase, you should be a player manager. You don’t need to be currently hands on configuring firewalls, monitoring SIEM alerts, but maybe you have in the past. Ideally you will have come from a technical background as you will be closing be working with technical teams. Skills should include, but not be limited to: Managing / developing to Incident response plans. Information Security Risk Management / compliance. Security awareness Driving remediation plans to address vulnerabilities etc. Hybrid working. Up to £100,000 + benefits.
-
- Lead Information and Cyber Security Specialist, Financial Services. Exclusive to DCL Search
- London
- 85,000
-
Consultative approach with experience engaging with internal stakeholders providing advice and guidance across information security policies and standards into projects and programmes. Risk identification / Assessment / Management across people and process. ISO27001. Open mindedness to take on projects and programmes that will involve advising, scoping, refining, improving technical security control relating to best practice. Preferred experience; PCI DSS ISA or consultative experience within security Payment card industry. Information Security / technical security controls within Financial Services. Risk Assessment / management across technical controls. Technical Security background. Experience within secure by design and the technical security controls relating to projects / programmes. iSO27001 Lead Implementer / Auditor. CISA, CISM, CISSP. 2 days a fortnight in London- or more if you want.. Hybrid reworking.
-
- Cyber Security Associate, Financial Services. Exclusive to DCL Search
- London
- £40,000
-
Exclusive Cyber Security Associate needed within a forward thinking financial services business head quartered in London. DCL Search have been engaged on an Identifier Project to attract the very best cyber talent to this business. Influence the cyber security capability and direction within the business. Learn new skills working within a collaborative team. Grow as a security professional. ROLE Triaging and troubleshooting security alerts at a level 1 / level 2 capacity. Reviewing security change management requests. Managing and use of security tooling such as; Endpoint management Vulnerability management Patch management CASB Experience with the following tools is desirable. ZOHO Desktop Central (Endpoint Management) Splunk (SIEM) Qualys CASB (Microsoft) Microsoft Azure Varonis DatAdvantage ADAudit Plus Sonicwall, Paloalto, Dark Trace, Cloudflare, Cisco Umbrella, Microsoft defender.
-
- Senior Cyber Security Engineer, Financial Services. Exclusive to DCL Search
- London
- 70000
-
Exclusive Senior Cyber Security Engineer needed within a forward thinking financial services business head quartered in London. DCL Search have been engaged on an Identifier Project to attract the very best cyber talent to this business. Influence the cyber security capability and direction within the business. Learn new skills working within a collaborative team. Grow as a security professional. ROLE Day to day operations, management and scalability of existing cyber security systems Managing of and maturing security tooling such as; SIEM Endpoint Management Firewall Patch Management CASB Vulnerability management. Triaging and troubleshooting security alerts. Improve tooling, reducing false positives. Reviewing, approving, escalating security change management requests. Implementing new cyber security systems. Ideal technical experience · Vulnerability Management: Qualys · Endpoint Management: ZOHO Desktop Central · Forcepoint: CASB, DLP, webs security, email security. · SIEM (Splunk) · Firewalls: Sonicwall, Palo Alto · Endpoint Microsoft Defender · Appreciation of ISO27001, GDPR, PCI, etc 2 days a fortnight in London- or more if you want.. Hybrid reworking.