Subtext, for those of you who don't know how analyst firms work:
Vendors subscribe to these things, or buy reports for their field, in order to get access to analysts. Access to analysts ensures that they themselves will appear in these reports.
Well, my firm does research reports like this (but not quite as expensive) and that is emphatically not our business model. We set out to deliver the best information we can to whoever needs and will buy it, and there is no relationship between being a customer and getting mentioned in a report.
It probably obvious to all, but I'll just state for the record that proper research reports are expensive to put together (and often impossible for buyers to do, because industry players won't talk to each other in the same way as they will talk to analysts) and typically sell in very small volumes (from just a handful of copies through to a couple of hundred if things go well -- of course there are outliers that become huge successes too, but they are few and far between)
I don't have much of a problem with gigantic price tags on research reports sold to buyers.
I do have a problem with the business model that soaks vendors for "valuable research" as a pretext for pay-to-play appearances in reports.
I cannot say that that is the business model of any specific firm, including the firm whose report is the subject of this thread. Just that I've been very closely involved in A.R. for a couple companies now and know how the market works.
Yes, point taken. Some funny stuff does go on. We've been approached more than once to provide nice supporting quotes for big company press releases, on a paid basis. Gedouttahere!
(The flipside of this is you should run a mile when you see "independent" analysts quoted in vendor press releases)
Not only does it ensure appearance in these reports, access to analysts also gives a firm the ability to influence the report itself through "its market expertise" and whatnot. It's actually not entirely a bad thing for this to happen, since the companies in the industry actually do have better ground level knowledge about the details and direction of the industry.
As with many things, balance is of the essence. :)
What is an analyst? Just any kind of analyst, in the traditional sense of the word? How do you get access to people when you subscribe to a publication? Why would they want to be in those reports? I'm confused!
Analysts are the people who write about subsets of the technology market for market research firms. They travel to vendors and to large companies who buy from vendors and attempt to assess the whole market; then they write these reports, which are ostensibly intended to help enterprise purchasers pick the right products (and thus easily justify 5-figure price tags).
I think you're failing to distinguish between companies like Gartner, who are more along the lines of what you describe (i.e. mass-market research) and other companies (like mpclark's) that have a small audience and need a lot of work to produce these reports.
In this case, IDC is a tech market research firm that has a stable of tech analyst that research and evaluate the a market and distill their work into a fancy book report. There are others like Gartner and Forrester that do something similar. Tech companies, media companies and investment banks buy these reports to keep track of the latest trends.
Haha... that's a dealbreaker right? Give me free shipping and I'll buy it before you can say 'semiconductor'! :P
EDIT:
Review of the microsemiconductor:
"Sure, the price looks okay for a microsemiconductor. However, for only 6.3 million dollars more, I was able to purchase a macro whole conductor, Sir Simon Rattle of the Berlin Philharmonic."
ROFL
Guessing it's an affiliate marketing scheme.
Some guy made a bot that generates blogspot blogs that refer to various Amazon products. When you click on any of those Amazon links they'll use his affiliate id.
I've wondered if that isn't the case, actually, on some non-digital products. You'll see a bunch of sellers offering an item around Amazon's own price, and then someone else selling it for $999.00. Those could just be tests, I suppose...
This was a design decision made long ago at Amazon. The reasoning is quite simple: If you buy a product somewhere else, or want to write a review based on the description, you should be able to share the information you want.
Not to mention you get some pretty funny fake reviews on products like the three wolf moon shirt.
Vendors subscribe to these things, or buy reports for their field, in order to get access to analysts. Access to analysts ensures that they themselves will appear in these reports.