Forrester bests Jupiter at making money, making mistakesMy esteemed colleague Owen Thomas worries that analyst firm Forrester Research, by buying its longtime rival JupiterResearch, has reduced the number of alternative opinions that will be floated in the media on any given topic. But by bringing Jupiter analysts including blogger favorite Michael Gartenberg aboard, Forrester will actually lessen the number of wrong opinions treated as near-fact by the mainstream media. I could spend a couple of days correlating Forrester vs. Jupiter on a spread of topics over the past decade. But screw it, I'm a journalist — two's a trend. Here are Forrester's two biggest misses I never forgot:

1998: Businesses will maintain separate networks for voice, video and data.

  • ''What we try to do is demystify hype,'' Forrester's Maribel Lopez told the New York Times. ''The buzz, a lot of it has to do with data guys looking to sell the next router upgrade.''
  • Jupiter's Abhi Chaki disagreed, correctly calling the convergence of phone and video networks onto the Internet "an inescapable reality."

2008: Businesses will not support the iPhone for a long time.

  • "The features that make it a consumer success don’t necessarily translate to the enterprise," wrote Forrester analysts Benjamin Gray and Robert Whiteley. "IT can’t be expected to support each and every operating system their employees have brought into the company."
  • Jupiter's Gartenberg spotted the Achille's heel in Forrester's argument: If the CEO, rather than the IT guy, brings one to work, "it becomes a de facto enterprise business tool."
(Photo by Michael Neel)