Historical Quadrant

I read an enlightened article called Analysts as a lagging indicator of success that explains issues with some of the large analyst firms very clearly.

In a nutshell, companies that have deeper pockets and/or more market share get more coverage. There is nothing inherently wrong with this setup. It's just that people evaluating options for a new project (e.g. a Business Intelligence deployment) should keep this in mind when looking at their research. The most established, or historically successful companies are not necessarily the best solutions for problems you are facing right now.

Small analyst firms tend to be more focused on the real technology innovations, and customer experiences. This information is of more value to a nascent opportunity.

That being said, for a vendor it feels good to be recognized by the big name analysts. It's validation that you did your job well for the past few years.