gideon-gartner-dead - The Washington Post

An MIT-trained engineer and Wall Street analyst, Mr. Gartner put an indelible stamp on the tech research industry in 1979 when he started the Gartner Group.

Up to then, computer research firms generally sold reports and services, with a focus on what systems to build and sell, to tech giants such as IBM, Microsoft and Digital Equipment Corp.

Mr. Gartner’s pivotal insight was that the computer users — the information technology gurus and chief information officers within large corporate computing operations — made up a vast prospective market for research and analysis, and they would need help navigating the fast-changing world of technology.

His idea unfolded amid a massive shift in the world of business as companies as diverse as JPMorgan Chase and General Motors became more reliant on computers as part of their infrastructure. It happened in incremental steps, from big mainframes to personal computers to the era of smartphones and cloud computing. Understanding all these shifts was critical for IT executives, and Mr. Gartner positioned his firm as a vital guide to understanding and embracing the idea that those changing systems were a critical part of the corporate equation.

“He built Gartner Group as the first research and analyst organization to really win the hearts and minds of senior IT managers and eventually CIOs,” said Bill Laberis, former editor of Computerworld, a leading industry newspaper.

As a result, Gartner Group became “the premier and most trusted IT adviser” providing and interpreting information that was crucial to these IT professionals, Laberis added. “He really turned the spotlight on IT managers and the vital role they played in the success of their organizations. For business leaders, he significantly turned up the volume on how important these people are.”

Gartner Group grew quickly, with the hard-driving Mr. Gartner recruiting the best and brightest analysts to join him. He was known to be a tough and exacting boss who regularly and relentlessly drilled his analysts to prepare them for client meetings.

Before Mr. Gartner’s foray into the business, the research sector produced thick 200 to 300-page reports for clients, which often sat on shelves gathering dust. IT managers were hungry for concise and accessible information and advice. Mr. Gartner insisted that Gartner Group reports could not exceed two pages.

Short and comprehensible was the format, but more importantly, the research had to be of the highest quality. “He brought a Wall Street research approach to the IT industry,” said George F. Colony, founder and chief executive of Forrester Research, a rival firm.

Equally important, Mr. Gartner spotted trends well before the competition and found a way to scale his company’s growth to unprecedented levels.

He created what he called Net Contract Value Increase, which meant Gartner Group’s aggressive sales force was compensated based on the growth of the value of client contracts during the fiscal period. This was unheard of among consulting/advisory firms, but it fueled Gartner’s growth and led to a successful initial public offering in 1986.

By that time, the company’s offerings were attracting not just corporate technology customers, but also professional investors who sought the firm’s insights about market trends.

For all his success as an innovator, Mr. Gartner earned a reputation as a visionary but difficult boss. “He was an irritant, like the grain of sand that irritates the oyster in order to make a pearl,” Colony said.

The board of his Stamford, Conn.-based company ousted him in 1993; Gartner Inc., as it is now known, is a $4.2 billion publicly traded company with nearly 17,000 employees operating in 100 countries.

Mr. Gartner departed with a reported $24 million and, after his noncompete agreement ended two years later, he launched Giga Information Group, named for the first two initials in his first and last names.

“At some point, I became obsessed with the idea of re-creating what we’d done at the Gartner Group,” he told the Boston Herald in 1997. “Once I got the bug I couldn’t stop.” He built Giga by acquiring several firms and, when the young firm was struggling after the dot-com meltdown in 2000, he sold it for about $60 million to Forrester Research.

Gideon Isaiah Gartner was born March 13, 1935, in Tel Aviv in what was then the British mandate of Palestine. His father, a civil engineer born in what is today Ukraine, was trying to start a business in the Middle East. His mother, born in Poland, was a grammar-school teacher.

Mr. Gartner grew up in Brooklyn and displayed a talent for music. He played the piano and later the French horn, eventually performing with a local symphony orchestra.

Offered a music scholarship to the University of Miami, Mr. Gartner instead chose to attend MIT. He graduated in 1956 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He received an MBA in 1960 from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and then worked in computer marketing for Philco. Corp. in Israel and later IBM Israel as a systems manager.

He later made the transition to Wall Street as a computer industry analyst with E.F. Hutton and then Oppenheimer & Co., where he was voted the top Wall Street computer industry analyst by Institutional Investor for seven straight years.

During that time, he realized the immense size and promise of the market for high-tech consulting. With venture backing in 1979, he began the Gartner Group.

Mr. Gartner’s marriages to Janet Sussman and Ruth Freed ended in divorce. In 2002, he married Sarah Schweitzer. In addition to his wife, survivors include three children from his first marriage, Perry, Sabrina and Aleba; a stepson; his stepmother; a brother; two stepsiblings; and a granddaughter.

Over the decades, Mr. Gartner kept a low public profile but had a massive impact. “He built an industry, but few know who he was,” Colony said. “He drove users forward into technology. He drove the entire tech industry forward, and he made it grow at a faster rate.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Mr. Gartner’s parents were Russian immigrants. His father was from what is today Ukraine, and his mother was from Poland. The story also incorrectly reported that Mr. Gartner’s parents were in Palestine when he was born because Mr. Gartner’s father was on a work assignment; in fact, he was trying to start a business there. The story has been revised.

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