Magic Quadrant

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The Gartner Magic Quadrant is a proprietary research tool developed by Gartner Inc., a US based research and advisory firm. It is designed to provide an unbiased qualitative analysis of a “markets’ direction, maturity, and participants.” ¹

This report is conducted for over 100 specific technical industries and is updated every 1 – 2 years. Examples of the types of markets analyzed include:

Application Infrastructure for Backend Integration Projects
Business Intelligence Implementation Services Providers (North America)
Campaign Management
Data Integration Tools
E-Mail Security Boundary
Field Service Management
Help Desk Outsourcing (North America)
Integrated Document Archive and Retrieval Systems
Job Scheduling
Managed Security Service Providers
Network Service Providers (Global)
Offshore Application Services (EMEA)
Product Life Cycle Management: Discrete Manufacturing
Retail Point of Sale Applications
Softswitch Architecture
Transportation Management Systems
Utilities Customer Information Systems
Web Conferencing

[edit] Rating

Gartners rates vendors upon two criteria: completeness of vision and ability to execute. Using different qualifiers per criteria for the varying industries, the Magic Quadrant then rates the participants into one of four quadrants:

Leaders
Challengers
Visionaries
Niche Players

Leaders score higher on both criteria; the ability to execute and completeness of vision. Typically larger industry developed businesses with vision and potential for expansion

Challengers score higher the ability to execute and lower on the completeness of vision. Typically larger, settled businesses with minimal future plans for that industry

Visionaries score lower on the ability to execute and higher on the completeness of vision. Typically smaller companies that are unloading their planned potential

Niche players score lower on both criteria: the ability to execute and completeness of vision. Typically market fledglings