Do I prefer the complete openness of the RedMonk model, sure. Is there value in the hybrid blogging/paid research angle of 451 group? I think so.

In all fairness to 451 Group’s blogging style, I think they are rather inclusive in their reporting of industry news mostly informed by press releases. I can’t think of a time when a company did a release about losing an exec other than to retirement or personal reasons. (If I were GW I would crow about landing Tara Spalding too, she’s top notch and that’s newsworthy.)

Disclosure: I am a Redmonk client, friend of Raven Zachary and “competitor” to Groundwork at Zenoss (In reality I think all OSS companies are really competing with proprietary vendors other than each other).

As a means of explanation for such stuff from us analysts, and in defense of Raven – whom I rate very highly – us analyst often get stuck in a “trap” of being told things in confidence that we then feel it wouldn’t be ethical to comment on, unless, as Raven points out, there was a public URL about it. Whether this is some big, PR conspiracy theory thing or not sort of moot for our daily operations: we want to know companies inside and out so that we can make judgments about their capability to help their customers (or achieve whatever goals they’re people are asking us about), so we welcome all the “inside” information we can get.

On the other hand, the more “conversations” we have in confidence with people, the less we can talk about and “just trust me” without explanation isn’t any type of judgment worth paying for unless you know the analyst well enough to, you know, just trust them

All that said, thanks for your high rating of RedMonk – getting remarks like that from folks like yourself makes our day

Now starts the who cares what I think portion. Unfortunately I analyze AG’s more than most people. Probably because I loath Gartner. In my small corner of th world Gartner is a 1 and Redmonk is an 8 (where 0=garbage and 10=Nirvana). My loose criteria for this is based on a few questions.

1) Can the AG provide valuable information to me?

2) Is their material open?

3) Do they disclose their customers when they are commenting on them?

4) Do they handle objective criticism well?

5) Do they pass the smell test?

IMHO, for the 451 Group…

1) Yes, and you are on my RSS.

2) No.

3) No.

4) Yes.

5) Not sure yet. Since I am not privy to your paying customer data I can only go by your public data.

One last note I am not a big fan of automated links for this reason. I know many people use it, however, I like to think that everything that goes on my blog is approved by me and represent my thoughts. I read every article that I link to and therefore I take full responsibility for everything I post.

If you are interested in some of my thoughts on all this please read the following posts…

http://www.johnmwillis.com/wp/open-source-software/my-views-on-oss-esm-part-1/

My daily link list is a collection of press releases, articles, and blog entries. As you may know, companies rarely, if ever, issue press releases about executive departures. Had there been an article in the press or a blog entry covering the executive departures at GroundWork, I would have linked to it, as I have linked to other executive departure articles and blog entries in the past.

Another point – there is a whole bunch of written material produced by The 451 Group that is only available to our clients. Often times, we will cover topics in our client-only material that does not go on the blog.

We have published our principles and ethics on our web site:

http://www.the451group.com/scope_of_research/principles.php

I invite you to talk to people who know me well, such as your friend William Hurley, who can provide insight into my character and dedication to objective coverage.