In today’s hearing on Gartner’s motion to dismiss ZL’s complaint, the court did not come to a decision.

Though Gartner’s marketing collateral insists that its research is “objective, defensible and credible,” Gartner continues to assert that its research reports are effectively pure opinion, namely, opinions not based on fact.  ZL believes this is clearly misleading to enterprises which expect better from Gartner than mere opinions-not-based-on-fact to resolve serious IT problems.

Gartner claims that its research is “objective, defensible and credible.” However, it claims in court filings that its MQ research reports are “pure opinion,” i.e., opinions not based on fact.

There appears to be a contradiction. Do Gartner customers expect the MQ map to reflect opinions based on facts? Or do they think the MQ map shows purely subjective opinions not based on fact?