At times, these companies do put out "studies" that appear to have been prompted by their own thinking. But if one digs a little, the reasons for the same become all too obvious.

Last week, Gartner, one of the better-known of these firms, put out a study, claiming that the Mac OS X operating system provided a more appealing desktop platform for the "enterprise" than GNU/Linux. (The use of the word enterprise baffles me - whence did it spring? Did the inspiration come from the starship Enterprise? Or is it used to indicate that a company is a creature with some initiative?)

Of course, nobody needed advice from Gartner to conclude that OS X is indeed more appealing than GNU/Linux. Any fool with a semblance of sight can see that, after using the two platforms for all of 10 minutes.

But that was only the start of Gartner's fulminations. The study, entitled "Enterprise Mac Clients Remain Limited, but Apple's Appeal is Growing", (the use of capital letters carries that much more authority, I guess) authored by Michael Silver, Neil MacDonald, Ray Wagner and Brian Prentice, went on to claim that even though they had discovered this "appeal" in OS X, the Mac was unlikely to take away any of Windows' business desktop share. No, it would only affect GNU/Linux.

And what was the basis for these conclusions? A throwaway line: "In many instances, Macs are replacing Unix and Linux workstations, rather than Windows PCs". No specifics. No company cited. No number of PCs in any study indicated. It comes from Gartner and therefore it has to be true. Fox News has a similar throwaway line: "Some people are saying..."

This kind of kite-flying is called "predicting." Sure, but even predictions need some basis, don't they? Even that crank astrologer looks at the lines in your palm and then tries to stuff you up with crap, doesn't he? But Gartner can fly these kites without a piece of string.

 
Gartner then concludes that Apple is not growing in the "enterprise space" because it does not licence out its hardware production to any manufacturer, because it does not support its operating systems for as long as Microsoft does, and because it is too consumer oriented - it has too many applications installed as defaults.

This, in effect, means that OS X, which incidentally is based on the BSDs, cannot be locked down - or didn't Gartner think that is a logical conclusion to be drawn from such sweeping conclusions? Another sweeping statement in the study is this: "many companies dislike procuring PC hardware when there is only a single provider." Funny, but many companies do seem to like procuring all their software from one vendor. If they are trying to avoid vendor lock-in, that seems kind of schizophrenic, doesn't it?

The "study", by the way, costs $US195. Apple gets a kick in the behind. So does GNU/Linux. Windows comes out smiling. Gartner has issued dozens of studies over the years which have the same effect.

What's the point of such fluff? Here's a quote from an article in Information Week which says it much better than I could: "Gartner also is partly owned by investment companies that have stakes in tech vendors upon which Gartner is supposed to be casting a neutral eye. Silver Lake Partners, which owns 33% of Gartner, counts Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and other tech-industry shakers among its current or former investors. Hedge fund ValueAct Capital owns more than 16% of Gartner and has owned as much as 11% of MSC Software, which Gartner views as a "challenger" in the market for product life-cycle-management software."

Independent studies? I think not.