I didn’t say everyone agreed with me. In fact, I didn’t even say ANYONE agreed with me. I merely said the dialog has been awesome, including your response, up until your turrets outburst in this last comment.

Glad I hit a nerve.

I have no deep-seated need to be right, Pete.

Further, I never said anything remotely close to “of course you would say that because you are an analyst”

…but you keep on keeping on, bro, because the one bit you got spot-on is the fact that you’re absolutely playing your part…

I’m absolutely mesmerized by your penchant and refined ability to take everything and anything out of context.

It’s a thing of beauty. It must be the analyst in you.

G’night, Ethel.

/Hoff

The amount of support I am getting for my post is overwhelmingly positive. I am amazed how many people agree with me. It is truly heartening to know that the rest of the world agrees with me and that your view is a minority one with only a handful of people (mostly vendors with suspect ideas).

Yes, we are all playing our roles particularly well. Your role is the one where you say “of course you would say that because you are an analyst” every time someone points out clear irony and idiocy in what you are saying.

My point is that this is a human bias thing and even though it “sucks monkey balls” it happens everywhere for everything. That is too philosophical and esoteric for this blog.

It is also your role to suggest that taking money for advice is always bad, which must put you in a tough situation given that you take money for advice, even if your title doesn’t say analyst in it (hint: strategist, evangelist, architect, philosopher, etc.. are all the same).

The notion that money is the only thing that people believe has value is silly, of course. Influence and power are a craving of many, particularly when they feel compelled to try to unseat some Goliath company. You certainly are better off creating a new category for yourself other than “analyst” so I applaud your efforts.

To suggest that “product categories do more bad than good” is a fact is absolutely ridiculous.

To suggest that vendors must “forcibly yield its strategy to the whim of a product category” is equally ridiculous and points the blame in the wrong direction.

To be so vehement about this without explicitly stating the case(s) you are thinking of is a disservice to the entire community. If you truly believe a company is innovative and is getting a raw deal, then call it out so we can all evaluate your opinions as well.

Who watches the bloggers?

The interesting thing about people’s responses to my post is that the majority (of analysts) rush to defend their honor where my intention was not to smear the individuals per se, but rather call into question the giant analyst COMPANY industrial complex.

The fact is (and it *is* a fact) that the buckets that products get sorted into do as much, if not more, bad as they do good.
They constrain products and innovation — also for bad and good.

In terms of your flimsy analog for quashing innovation by using my recent review of SCIT – I don’t take money in any form for my reviews, opinions or “research” and I don’t have the ability to cause a company to forcefully yield its strategy to the whim of a product category or risk going out of business.

The offline dialog from this post has been awesome. It’s fueled discussion, mostly from analysts.

Go figure.