Conflict Dogs Tech Researchers; Critiquing Customers; Market tracker Forrester tightened some policies for vendor-paid research.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: J. BONASIA

Tech research firms advise companies on tech goods and services to buy. That's the well-known bulk of their business.

Less known is the fact that many of these research firms get a third or more of their income from the very vendors they critique.

This model presents inherent conflicts of interest in several ways, many people say.

A marketing director at a small California software maker related one example of the conflict, but only on condition of anonymity. "We can't say anything bad on the record because it might create potential problems for us," said the marketer.

This executive says smaller tech vendors often feel pressured to become clients of market research firms in order to gain wider analyst coverage. He says his company held six meetings with research firms over the summer to brief them on its products, in hopes that the products would make it into their research reports.

But right away, he says, his team's product briefings were turned into sales calls by the research firms.