Gartner Gobbles up Burton Group – Good or Bad Sign?

This blog often talks about data deduplication, but today, some news about a different type of dedupe came across our desk. Consulting giant Gartner has acquired Burton Group for $56 million. This is just one example of the larger consolidation trend that’s been taking over the consulting industry. In fact, this is the second such acquision by Gartner–a month ago it picked up AMR for a similar price tag.

For many, it is unsettling to see these acquisitions by the consulting industry’s 800-lb. gorilla. As F5′s Don MacVittie so succinctly put it on Twitter, “The Incredible Shrinking Analyst Market.”

But this acquisition has its positives, says James Governor’s Monkchips blog. His boutique analyst firm, Redmonk might actually benefit, he says. Why? Because companies will need a source for a “second or third opinion” once they’ve gotten the Gartner view.

Says James: “Enterprises use Gartner for a reason – for the experience and knowledge of its people – and with Burton comes heavy collaboration, directory, networking and SOA experience.”

Clearly, Gartner is waking up to the growth–and increased complexity–of the modern data center. It is by necessity responding to the needs of IT decision-makers within organizations who must make calls about everything from virtualization to cloud computing to security all along the line. As this post on the Burton Group blog explains:

“Gartner focuses on the executive level – the strategic question of “what to do.”  Burton Group focuses on the IT leaders and implementers – the question of “how to do.”  So both products compliment each other and focus on different audiences within the IT organization.”

What’s notable is the extent to which specialization is becoming the name of the analyst game. What do you, the IT-decision-maker need to know? Gartner’s bet is essentially this: if it delves deeper into the weeds–offering more than just business strategy and its (increasingly devalued) stamp of approval–it  is more likely to retain its customers over the long haul. Do you agree? If not, why not?