IT analysts market leader Gartner has agreed to acquire competitor Meta group for about 162 million USD in cash, which is a 54 percent premium to Meta Group's share price at that moment.
Although this came as a suprise to most IT journalists, it is clear that Gartner wants to widen the revenue gap with the other players in the IT analyst market. The combined Gartner/Meta Group company could have 2005 revenues in excess of 1 billion USD.
Our analysis: Although it is already regarded as the major source of advice for important IT decisions, Gartner wants to make sure nobody looks elsewhere for such advice. This gives Gartner the power to ask even more for its research, particularly companies who want to be screened and analysed before they appear on any of the magic quadrants that Gartner is so popular for.
A few articles on this acquisition are in the Boston Globe, Dow Jones, CBS Marketwatch, and the press release at the Gartner Web site.
Posted by admin at December 29, 2004 12:57 PM