Cool Vendors 2007

It's not easy to be labeled a cool vendor in 2007. The theme of user experience and the focus on consumer interaction are driving a whole new set of technological imperatives and a new set of cool vendors. Read more

Application Development (Summary)

Cool vendors are providing tools to improve the flexibility and productivity of development organizations. This research provides details on Cool Vendors in application development for 2007.

Analytics, Business Intelligence & Corporate Performance Management (Summary)

Despite BI market consolidation, innovative offerings are still available. We look at vendors offering BI software as a service, visualization and data mining, and a collaborative community approach to sharing datasets.

Automotive (Summary)

The automotive industry is redesigning products and processes to ensure long-term success. Emerging IT vendors play an important role in this transformation.

Business Process Management (Summary)

Microsoft Windows and Office are the dominant technologies in their markets. With new versions arriving soon, organizations are trying to decide how, when and even whether to deploy these new products. Find out how your enterprise will be affected.

Carrier Network Infrastructure (Summary)

This Special Report shows you how to define, measure, financially evaluate and infuse agility into your IT efforts, including areas such as security, process management, information search and retrieval, and dealings with external service providers. This research will clarify agility, give you a framework for the future, and warn you of the roadblocks ahead.

Consumer Communications (Summary)

India and China increasingly are occupying center stage in the information and communications technology (ICT) landscape. In these Special Reports, Gartner examines how their ICT industries are evolving and what their global impact will be.

Content Management (Summary)

Many governments have refined their e-government strategies by focusing on short- to medium term objectives that are mostly aimed at achieving greater efficiency. Fewer are looking at a broader, longer-term picture of IT's role in government and society, when the public sector is likely to be different than today. This special report summarizes research that Gartner has conducted to help clients in this long-term planning process. We have developed a number of future scenarios to answer the fundamental question of how government will use and be shaped by technology in year 2020.

CRM Marketing and Analytics (Summary)

Innovative vendors that target solutions for marketing and analytics can help companies drive competitive advantage through the differentiation of marketing processes. Clients should consider these "cool vendors" for their innovative capabilities but should manage vendor risk.

CRM Customer Service and Field Service (Summary)

CIOs worldwide are demanding improvements to customer service, yet underlying applications lack the flexibility to respond to changes in customer demands. This has pushed a wave of capital investments and innovations. Gartner looks at the new crop of customer service and feedback management vendors.

CRM Sales (Summary)

A continued boom in spending on CRM sales applications has spurred a new wave of vendors. They offer innovative ways to help sales professionals sell or deliver distinguishing online experiences.

Data Management and Integration (Summary)

Organizations increasingly aim to leverage and control all data types across the business, making information part of business infrastructure. Our cool vendors for 2007 reflect trends in how data is stored, accessed, integrated and governed.

Emerging Technologies (Summary)

This report features vendors contributing at the intersection of the real and the virtual, including augmented reality, mesh networks, 3-D printing and broadcast light device interconnects, as well as one vendor offering a strategic "road-mapping" tool.

Enterprise Architecture (Summary)

Cool vendors in enterprise architecture are assisting with governance issues related to the planning and tracking of projects and investments.

Enterprise Communications (Summary)

The "cool vendors" in this market are concentrating on two key areas. Network infrastructure relies on scalability, flexibility and cost; while network-based applications focus on personal and group productivity.

Energy and Utilities (Summary)

New technologies pervade many areas of energy and utilities operations to improve performance. The drive to operational excellence and increased environmental sensitivity has given rise to many innovative solutions in utility information and operation technology areas.

Finance and HCM (Summary)

Though many view financial and HCM solutions as mature and stable markets, the reality is that significant innovation is happening.

High Performance Workplace (Summary)

Cool vendors in the high-performance workplace are helping to bridge the gulf between people and ideas and/or information. Some of the vendors in this report are Web-based, while others are tied to enterprise or individual software components, but all could significantly improve the way we get things done.

Infrastructure Protection (Summary)

This year's Cool Vendors show that security technology providers continue to demonstrate innovation in adapting to new and ever more dangerous threats to enterprise infrastructure.

Integration and Platforms (Summary)

Many innovative products offer the potential to simplify the development and deployment of distributed applications. However, users should always temper their enthusiasm for innovative new technology by considering the risks associated with making strategic investments in small vendors.

IT Operations Management (Summary)

We highlight vendors with intriguing technology in IT operations management software that focus on application management, predictive event management and e-mail availability.

IT Operations Process Automation (Summary)

Gartner highlights vendors with intriguing technology in the new, emerging IT operations area of IT operations process automation (run book automation).

IT Sourcing and Services (Summary)

As the outsourcing industry matures, increasingly diverse types of providers and services are emerging to take advantage of global locations and new business models.

Life Sciences (Summary)

Life science companies need an edge in a highly competitive Industry. Here, we highlight five "cool" vendor solutions that, due to their uniqueness and focus, can deliver this edge.

Manufacturing (Summary)

Manufacturers need to turn to innovative vendors to provide competitive differentiation. Many times these are small vendors with cutting-edge technology. These vendors carry risks but offer enough rewards to warrant consideration.

Media (Summary)

Digital distribution and an ever-powerful set of technologies, enabling great consumer control over media access and manipulation, will continue to set the stage for a new order of media titans in 2007.

Mobile and Wireless (Summary)

Today's "cool vendors" in the mobile and wireless market understand that users care about applications and productivity. These vendors promise flexible solutions that will take the complexity and cost out of wireless.

PC Technologies (Summary)

These cool vendors serve up easy-to-use technologies that promise end-user flexibility, mobility and security for enterprises, as well as consumer markets.

Printing Markets (Summary)

Four of this year's cool vendors apply original thinking to printing challenges: boosting marketing response, lowering inkjet printing costs, improving document resource accessibility and trimming paper waste; the fifth provider introduces a remote personal interface that targets disabled workers.

Retail Technologies (Summary)

Retailers typically spend 2% of revenue on IT, of which the bulk goes toward maintaining highly distributed operations and mission-critical business applications. These three cool technologies applied in retail should grab the attention of retail CIOs and business strategists.

Secure Business Enablement (Summary)

This year's Cool Vendors are developing highly advanced yet practical solutions to security threats against critical business processes.

Semiconductors (Summary)

In the semiconductors market, several vendors are developing technologies that promise to revolutionize electronics systems. This report profiles five of these "cool vendors."

Storage Management (Summary)

Storage administrators and IT management staff are regularly subject to a variety of storage management challenges. A group of new storage vendors is delivering management products that provide solutions focused on specific problems.

Storage Systems (Summary)

The five storage system vendors featured in this report offer various products to address the cost issue associated with storage hardware.

Supply Chain and Procurement (Summary)

New entrants, such as BIQ, FreeFlow, TrueDemand and Vinimaya, are driving innovation in the supply chain and procurement application markets.

User-Interface Technology Innovation (Summary)

New technology choices coming to user-interface designers include whether displays should be billboard- or TV-size (projected from a laptop) and whether input should come from a remote control with a built-in color display, voice commands or a soft keyboard sewn into clothing.

Web 2.0 (Summary)

As Web 2.0 continues to garner tremendous visibility, a variety of Web-based applications are emerging from small, "cool" vendors as Web 2.0 takes shape.