I spent roughly sixteen years practicing martial arts. I learned several styles that included self-defense, stand up fighting techniques, grappling, and how to throw an opponent. I also learned to use several weapons—yes, I do have nun-chuck skills. Sometimes I like to watch Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fights, but not because of the violence or blood. I’m really more of a pacifist. I prefer to watch the smaller guys compete in the octagon. They’re faster, more agile, land more strikes, and are far more strategic and technical in the way they fight than the heavy weight competitors. However, you won’t see a fight between a featherweight and a heavy weight in the MMA. It’s just not considered a fair fight.

Battle in the Magic Quadrant Octagon

That’s not the case in the real world, and especially not in business, where you so often see one-sided matchups between the giants and the little guys. When it comes to the Gartner Client Management Tools Magic Quadrant, who would have thought LANDESK could go toe-to-toe with the big guys, stay competitive as a leader in the Magic Quadrant for nine years, and come out on top?

Battle in the Critical Capabilities Octagon

Oh yeah, I said COME OUT ON TOP! If you really want to know the overall winner in the Client Management Tools, you just have to dig a little deeper and read the companion Gartner Critical Capabilities for Client Management Tools report available from the same page. LANDESK was ranked #1 in the Total Endpoint Management use case for the second year in the row. LANDESK also finished in the top two for the Compliance and Security and Large Global Enterprise use cases. In fact, LANDESK finished ahead of Microsoft in all four use cases. Now that’s quite a David vs. Goliath story!

Competitive Respect and Integration

If you like competitive or combative sports, it is good to see the respect competitors have for each other after their battle. Yes, there might be plenty of blood, sweat and a few tears on the canvas, but in the end, good competitors embrace each other, pat each other on the back, and say how much they respect one another. It’s fun to compete with such good competitors in the Client Management Tools arena, but we also embrace and integrate with those competitors, extending their offerings, and we compete in different arenas than they do.

Ranked in Four Magic Quadrants

LANDESK is in three other Gartner Magic quadrants, including those related to endpoint protection, IT service management, and enterprise mobility management, which just came out this week too and Gartner customers can see it here. None of the other main competitors show up in all four of these Gartner Magic Quadrants, making LANDESK a very intriguing vendor both in terms of the vision and execution we use to solve customer’s IT challenges with User-Centered IT solutions If you want to partner with a vendor that competes aggressively to make your IT organization better, who’s agile, and who won’t treat you like you’re just another number, then LANDESK might be the IT champion you’re looking for to be a warrior on your team.