Please note that a more recent version of this article from 2022 can be found here. Not all companies can justify investing in Gartner, Forrester, or other top-tier analyst firm subscriptions. So what can you do if you want to find out what key industry analysts think of the highest-profile IT service management (ITSM) vendors and their tools? Well, there’s no need to beg, steal, or borrow. Instead many of the analyst’s most insightful documents, including the 2016 Gartner ITSSM Magic Quadrant, are freely available thanks to ITSM tool vendors and their marketing teams.
There is now a newer 2021 version of this post featuring more recent analyst ITSM reports, including the 2020 Gartner ITSM Magic Quadrant. You can view this here.
In this blog you’ll find links to access the following ten analyst reports, not all of which are ITSM-related, for free:
- The 2016 Gartner ITSSM Magic Quadrant
- The 2015 Gartner ITSSM Critical Capabilities report
- The latest Forrester ITSM SaaS Solutions Vendor Landscape report (2016)
- The Gartner “Before Purchasing an ITSSM Tool, Compare Pricing and Licensing” report
- The EMA “DevOps, Continuous Delivery, and the Cloud Journey: An Evolutionary Model” report
- The Gartner Top 10 IT Service Delivery Strategies for 2016 report
- The latest OVUM ITSM Decision Matrix report (2015)
- The 2015 Gartner Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Magic Quadrant
- The latest Gartner Public Cloud Storage Services Magic Quadrant
- The latest Forrester Customer Service Trends report
Well, like I said in the title, they’re almost for free, as you usually need to part with your contact details.
The 2016 Gartner ITSSM Magic Quadrant
You can download the latest (2016) Gartner IT Service Support Management (ITSSM) Magic Quadrant from one of the following ITSM tool vendors:
- Axios:
- BMC:
- Cherwell:
- ServiceNow:
We have listed the vendors in alphabetical order but feel free to choose who you would prefer to give your contact details to – remember these vendors will likely follow up with some form of marketing communication.
The 2015 Gartner ITSSM Critical Capabilities report
You can download the 2015 Gartner ITSSM Critical Capabilities report from:
The 2016 Gartner ITSSM Critical Capabilities report has been published, but we have yet to see a vendor-licensed copy available for download.
The latest Forrester ITSM SaaS Solutions Vendor Landscape report
You can download the latest (2016) Forrester Vendor Landscape: ITSM SaaS Solutions report from:
- USU: https://bsm.usu.de/file/2752/free-download-forrester-report-on-itsm-saas
The Gartner “Before Purchasing an ITSSM Tool, Compare Pricing and Licensing” report
You can download the Gartner “Before Purchasing an ITSSM Tool, Compare Pricing and Licensing” report from:
- Sunview Software: http://www2.sunviewsoftware.com/l/6862/2016-05-13/4wk7wr
The EMA “DevOps, Continuous Delivery, and the Cloud Journey: An Evolutionary Model” report
You can download the EMA “DevOps, Continuous Delivery, and the Cloud Journey: An Evolutionary Model” report from:
- BMC: As of 2023 this report is no longer available to download.
The Gartner Top 10 IT Service Delivery Strategies for 2016 report
The Gartner Top 10 IT Service Delivery Strategies for 2016 report from:
The latest Ovum ITSM Decision Matrix report
The latest Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting an IT Service Management SaaS Solution, 2015-2016 report can be downloaded from:
- Cherwell:
- SysAid: https://www.sysaid.com/ovum-report
The 2015 Gartner Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Magic Quadrant
The latest (2015) Gartner Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, Worldwide Magic Quadrant from:
- Amazon Web Service (AWS): https://aws.amazon.com/resources/gartner-2015-mq-learn-more/
The latest Gartner Public Cloud Storage Services Magic Quadrant
A publicly available reprint of the latest Gartner Public Cloud Storage Services Magic Quadrant is available:
- Here: https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-2IH2LGI&ct=150626&st=sb
Which is/was available via Google search.
The latest Forrester Customer Service Trends report
You can download the latest (2016) Forrester Customer Service Trends report from:
- ServiceNow: http://www.servicenow.com/lpayr/top-10-trends-the-future-of-customer-service.html
There are bound to be more “almost free to access” analyst reports out there. If you want to share one, or more, please add it/them as a comment below. Thanks for sharing.
Sophie Danby
Sophie is a freelance ITSM marketing consultant, helping ITSM solution vendors to develop and implement effective marketing strategies.
She covers both traditional areas of marketing (such as advertising, trade shows, and events) and digital marketing (such as video, social media, and email marketing). She is also a trained editor. Y
2 Responses
Stuff from HDI, SDI and ISACA can land here too.
This one requires registration: Service Desk Institute (SDI) report called “Life on the Service Desk in 2016” https://freshservice.com/life-service-desk-report
Good call. That’s a good report from SDI Ollie that was sponsored by Freshservice.