(Corrected from original posting on Tuesday, September 4, 2007)

First it was the move towards silos; IDC pushed more and more core research and analysts into their Insights practices, Gartner moved media and automotive technologies out of core research.  Then came the breakdowns by job role (Forrester and Gartner); special websites, research and tools for AR practitioners, sales people, marketers.  In some cases, such as Forrester views, the new job role breakdowns do not actually come with a price increase.  But with more and more of the most basic core being cut away from subscriptions, research clients are getting jittery, sometime misinterpreting even well-intended changes in coverage as an excuse for price increases.  And in other cases, the price increases are very real.  A few recent examples:

- Gartner Hype Cycle for Semiconductors was outside of core research and therefore unavailable. This has been changed back; let's hope it was just a mistake.  Hype Cycles are about as core as you can get.

- Everything is Dataquest.  It seems that more and more of Gartner's published reports that a year or two ago would have fallen squarely into core research are now being labeled as Dataquest. 

- Also noticing a trend towards Gartner Forecast reports no longer being part of core research.  Examples include worldwide (not regional) forecasts for mobile devices, semiconductors and storage. 

-  And the above doesn't include Gartner's 'premium research' which stretches to areas like SMB, retail... etc.

With so many analyst sales reps heading into Q4 contract negotiations, they would do well to remember that the market is extremely sensitive to yet another price increase, yet another "shift" in service.

This begs the question; what is defined as core research?  It seems that the analyst firms are doing their best to slice and dice IT research into as many separate portions as can be made profitable, but where does it end?   I am sure we're not the only folks out there feeling the pain of these new policies.  Please feel free share your experiences with pared-down access, and the explanations you have received from your reps as to why what used to be included now requires extra investment.