Gartner Highlights 11 'Cool Vendors' From Australia and New Zealand in 2016

SYDNEY, Australia, May 25, 2016 — Gartner today announced that 11 companies from Australia and New Zealand were featured in its 2016 Cool Vendors research series. This research examines digital disruptions and potential disrupters that will change our relationship with technology forever.

This is the largest number of vendors from Australia and New Zealand featured in Gartner’s annual Cool Vendors research so far, indicating how digitalisation is driving innovation throughout the region.

“The trend toward digitalisation continues unabated in 2016,” said Daryl Plummer, vice president and Gartner Fellow. "These disruptive changes can shift assets, channels and capabilities of entire industries. Whether feature-focused, fad-obsessed or disruption-bound, CIOs, IT leaders and their technology provider counterparts cannot ignore the effect of the new digital landscape."

This year, Gartner has published 98 Cool Vendors reports profiling nearly 456 vendors. Many of these providers are exploiting digitalisation and the Internet of Things (IoT) to build the next generation of innovation. This offers unprecedented opportunities to exploit new business models, compress cycles of insight and get to business outcomes.

Gartner's definition of a Cool Vendor is a small company offering a technology or service that is:

* Innovative — enables users to do things they could not do before.

* Impactful — has or will have a business impact; it is not just a matter of "technology for its own sake."

* Intriguing — has caught analysts' interest or curiosity during the past six months or so.

The 11 companies from Australia and New Zealand featured in this year's 'Cool Vendor' reports are:

* Alex Solutions, Melbourne (www.alexsolutions.com.au) - appears in two reports: ‘Cool Vendors in Risk Management, 2016’ and ‘Cool Vendors in Information Innovation and Governance, 2016.’

* Aulive, Glen Elgin (www.aulive.com) - appears in ‘Cool Vendors in Information Innovation and Governance, 2016.’

* Canva, Sydney (https://www.canva.com) - appears in ‘Cool Vendors in Content Marketing, 2016.’

* Catapult, Melbourne (www.catapultsports.com) - appears in ‘Cool Vendors in Wearable Electronics for Enterprise, 2016.’

* Hey You, Sydney (www.heyyou.com.au) – appears in ‘Cool Vendors in Consumer Mobile Applications, 2016.’

* Integrated Research (IR), Sydney (www.ir.com) – appears in ‘Cool Vendors in Availability and Performance, 2016.’

* Maestrano, Sydney (https://maestrano.com) – appears in ‘Cool Vendors in Pervasive Integration, 2016.’

* Octopus Deploy, Brisbane (https://octopus.com) – appears in ‘Cool Vendors in DevOps, 2016.’

* SmartCap Technologies, Brisbane (www.smartcaptech.com) - appears in ‘Cool Vendors in Wearable Electronics for Enterprise, 2016.’

* StretchSense, Auckland (www.stretchsense.com) – appears in ‘Cool Vendors in Using IoT-Enabled Humans Instead of Robots, 2016.’

* Veriluma, Sydney (www.veriluma.com) – appears in ‘Cool Vendors in Analytics, 2016.’

Since Gartner first introduced the Cool Vendors report in 2004, more than 2,900 Cool Vendors have been profiled. A few Cool Vendors have gone on to become IT megavendors in their own right, while others have been acquired by megavendors and other industry stalwarts; however, some have simply disappeared from the radar. While the 2016 collection of Cool Vendors is not exhaustive, Gartner analysts have selected some companies to highlight based on their sense of how impactful they are today and can be in the near future.

Additional information is available in the report "Cool Vendors 2016: Features, Fads and Disruptions Will Define the Digital Landscape." This special report looks at how many of this year's Cool Vendors are exploiting digitalisation to build the next generation of innovation.

The digital landscape will be examined further in the Gartner webinar "Cool Vendors for 2016: Features-Fads-Disruptions in the Digital Landscape." The complimentary webinar will take place on June 2 at 9am EDT (11pm AEST) and noon EDT (2am AEST – 3 June).

About Gartner

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. The company delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is the valuable partner to clients in approximately 10,000 distinct enterprises worldwide. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyse and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, USA, and has 7,900 associates, including more than 1,700 research analysts and consultants, and clients in more than 90 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.