As I am sure most of you already know, Gartner Inc. is probably the largest and most trusted (or at least widely used) technology analysis firm out there. Gartner analyzes a lot more than just technology, but in our industry, they seem to have a death grip on the title of top analyst firm.

I've spoken to many analysts there, and I've attended some of their conferences, and I have to say that the company deserves its reputation as a source of quality and truth. But there is one aspect of the Gartner world that has long irritated me: The Magic Quadrant.

Now, the primary reason I dislike this Magic Quadrant is that most of the companies who make it in there immediately seize on this fact in their PR work. I've gotten countless calls that suggest I should cover a company simply because it is in Gartner's Magic Quadrant. I'd just like to state for the record here and now: We will never cover any company based solely on its appearance in a Magic Quadrant.

ZL Technologies is also upset about the Magic Quadrant. So much so that they've decided to take legal action against Gartner. The ZL claim is that Gartner only places its clients in the Magic Quadrant. Could be. I know that I've seen some suspicious looking quadrants in my day. And as a publicity stunt, this is doing a lot of favors for ZL, a company I'd never heard of before the lawsuit.

But I do think they have a valid point here. Gartner sells a lot of reports and services to a lot of companies, and it also includes many of those companies in its research. If IBM is going to pay Gartner millions of dollars for a report on the future of Z/OS in the market, is it possible that the contract is balanced upon a Magic Quadrant inclusion?

These types of lawsuits aren't black and white. I'm sure there is a lot of gray here, and Gartner probably walks the line with many policies in place to act as a firewall.

The actual report charts certainly support ZL's claim that Gartner favors massive companies in its Magic Quadrant. IBM effectively lives there in almost every category, and it's rare that a non-public company makes it in there. It does happen, though.

But on the other side of the fence, when it comes to gigantic projects, like world wide coordinated enterprise software development, it is the gigantic companies that are best suited to execute, when speaking generically. I think that ZL Technologies, and many Gartner report purchasers, miss the fact that many of the firms in these charts are well suited to very specific needs. Gartner reports focus on the very broad, unless you pay them lots of money for a custom report. In very broad terms, of course IBM is going to be your best bet: No matter what weird edge case you have, IBM has probably dealt with it somewhere.

But that doesn't mean a smaller firm can't be just as effective at executing on a project. Gartner's simply showing off the generalists. The United States usually wins the most gold medals at the Olympics, but that doesn't mean it will always win the Biathlon.

Finally, Gartner does employ some supremely smart people, and it's $10,000-a-day consultants are worth every penny. But at the end of the day, no consultant can replace your own time-consuming, painstaking hard work and research. Gartner and any other consulting firm are not remedies; they are a tools to be applied where most effective. They are also sources of information. But you wouldn't let your hammer and radio choose what kind of engine you put in your car, would you?

ZL Technologies is putting out a call for like-minded Gartner haters.