A Threat to Analyst Groups?
Tech Crunch has moved into the Analyst/Research Group space with their new venture: Tech Crunch Research offering either single reports at $149 or an annual subscription at $450..RedMonk was the first opensource analyst firm and their tagline is : Analysis for the people,by the people. They offer their research for free and sell their consulting hours based on the company size, use of research and ability to pay.
I see this as the business model of the future for the big guys also-Forrester and Gartner. The subscription model has a limited lifetime as a business model since everything else in the IT and Marketing world is moving towards transparency. I am guessing that Forrester will be the first to move and Gartner the last--but it will happen.