Magical indeed

Gartner have just released the magic BI quadrant for Januari 2011. Magic indeed, as some things that are going on must be based on magic rather than on objective criteria.


Januari 2009
In Januari 2009, Gartner released a magic BI quadrant. Pentaho doesn't make it to this magical quadrant due to revenue requirements. Gartner added the following comment to their magical quadrant text:
“However, while they don’t meet the revenue requirement, Jaspersoft and Pentaho have emerged as viable players in the BI platform market and as such we invited these firms to take part in the Magic Quadrant user survey. Both open source vendors provide comprehensive BI platform capabilities that are comparable to traditional BI platform vendors. A key part of both vendors’ strategy is to forge OEM relationships with commercial independent software vendors (ISVs) looking to easily embed BI functionality at a low price point. Jaspersoft and Pentaho enable ISVs to OEM open-source BI components without being bound by the GNU General Public License (GPL) terms and conditions. Given their subscription-based model, both vendors need to provide exemplary support. This was in evidence in the MQ reference survey, as both Jaspersoft and particularly Pentaho scored strongly on the customer support question — higher than any of the megavendors.” Source: Sherlockinformatics


Januari 2010
In Januari 2010, Pentaho doesn't make it to the magic quadrant. Gartner explains why:
"Beyond the emerging vendors, Gartner gave serious consideration, as it did last year, to including open-source BI suppliers in the Magic Quadrant. While this year, both major open-source BI platform suppliers generated enough revenue to be included in the Magic Quadrant, they did not garner enough customer survey responses. Although they did not meet the references requirement, Jaspersoft and Pentaho have emerged as viable players in the BI platform market. Both open-source vendors provide comprehensive BI platform capabilities that are comparable in many functional areas with those of traditional BI platform vendors. A key part of both vendors' strategy is to forge OEM relationships with commercial independent software vendors (ISVs) looking to easily embed BI functionality at a low price point. Jaspersoft and Pentaho enable ISVs to embed their open-source BI components without being bound by the GNU General Public License terms and conditions. Given their subscription-based model, both vendors need to provide exceptional support. This was reflected in the Magic Quadrant customer survey, as both Jaspersoft and Pentaho scored strongly on the customer support question — higher than any of the megavendors for the second year in a row. Source: Gartner


Januari 2011
In Januari 2011 Pentaho again doesn't make the magic quadrant. Gartner comments.
Pentaho garnered enough survey customer responses for inclusion on the Magic Quadrant, and it indicated to Gartner early in October 2010 that its 2010 BI platform revenue would meet or exceed $15 million. However, Pentaho recently informed Gartner that its growth in BI platform revenue (separate from its stand-alone extraction, transformation and loading [ETL] revenue) was slower than expected and thus represented a much smaller percentage of its overall revenue. This resulted in Pentaho falling well below the survey revenue inclusion requirement of $15 million (this will be reflected in the upcoming 2Q11 report, "Market Share: Business Intelligence, Analytics and Performance Management Software, Worldwide, 2010"). Subsequently, Pentaho was excluded from the Magic Quadrant this year. However, it did provide enough customer references to be included in the Magic Quadrant Customer Survey research notes that will publish in 1Q11. Source: Gartner
Remark: Gartner defines total software revenue as revenue that is generated from appliances, new licenses, updates, subscriptions and hosting, technical support, and maintenance. Professional services revenue and hardware revenue are not included in total software revenue.
Enough sales in 2009 but not in 2010?
So if I read this right, according to Gartner, Pentaho realized enough revenue in 2009 (inclusion criteria: $15 million") but didn't realise enough revenue in 2010 (inclusion criteria: $15 million). That would seem strange since Pentaho announced a 120% growth of bookings during the year 2010. How is it possible they suddenly end up "well below the survey inclusion requirement of $15 million"? The whole thing makes me wonder about the decision criteria Gartner uses to compose their magical quadrant. How much do these analysts really play with the criteria to get a wanted output.

Can some one enlighten me? Please?