Comparing the EMM Gartner Magic Quadrant to Forrester Wave

Gartner and Forrester are the two best resources out there for conducting your research when looking into buying a new enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution or seeing how your current solution stacks up to the competition. Most see the Gartner Magic Quadrant as the end-all-be-all of enterprise technology analysis which creates a frenzy among vendors to make it into the coveted leaders quadrant. It’s very important to realize that Gartner is not the only resource out there that will give you great snapshot of the current EMM market in order to choose the right solution for you.

The first and biggest difference between the two is their frequency and release dates. Gartner gives you an overview of the entire year of EMM tech along with what’s changed and what to expect going forward. Forrester releases their Wave report every quarter. This gives you two different ways to view the EMM industry; Gartner gives you a heavier look over the past year and Forrester gives a lighter more short term look at the industry.

Forrester and Gartner both offer a convenient graphic that essentially does the same thing. If you’re not interested in reading the whole report, these graphics offer a great snapshot of the industry and an easy way to cross reference and compare both findings. The titles given to each category on the Forrester report are more straightforward than on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. These titles include Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders and Challengers as opposed to Gartner’s Leaders, Visionaries, Challengers and Niche. Forrester’s graphic also includes information on market presence so you can see at a glance which solutions is the most widely used.

Forrester also provides a chart that ranks each of their included solutions according to their current offerings, strategy and market presence. Gartner does not have a comparable section in their Magic Quadrant report, but does have a similar resource in their Critical Capabilities Report.

Each report includes small profiles based on what the analysts of each organization have taken from each product. The first part of Gartner’s profiles are very similar to the kind of feel and information the Forrester profiles provide based on the individual analysts doing the report. Gartner’s however, goes a bit further and offers strengths and weaknesses that they found over the past year.

If you’re trying to decide on which report to download, don’t; both resources are equally useful and important to both vendors and consumers. While they differ in some features, they both offer a thoughtful and thorough look into the space and if you’re serious about buying is huge. There’s nothing worse than going into a sales call with a prospective solution blind or not knowing how it compares to others.