Today we published “The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Detection And Response, Q1 2020” report to help you understand how the 12 most relevant vendors in the space are squaring off against each other, with a focus on product functionality, vendor strategy, and client experiences. I’m honestly quite excited about this evaluation and have taken the concept of our having an open methodology a step further by also releasing the demo script that was used to evaluate these products during the evaluation. With that in mind, here are a few quick recommendations as you get ready to dive into the report.

Enjoy The Pictures, But Be Sure To Read The Articles

The first place everyone goes is the Wave graphic — I get it. One of my own secret pleasures is to periodically peek at the Wave graphic while I’m entering the scores so I can watch the vendor bubbles run their virtual horse race toward a Leader position. That said, any one of these vendors could be the right choice for you, and I pulled no punches in delivering each of their stories. I’ve confided in a few people that my goal when writing these vendor paragraphs was to differentiate this report in the market with the candid nature of what is and isn’t working for these vendors… focus here.

There’s A Lot More Transparency In The Model Than You Might Know

Forrester provides the Wave methodology for anyone to see on the website. What may come as a surprise to some is that clients can download the Wave model to view in Excel from within the report, which provides clients with a copy of what I used to score the vendors straight from the report. This workbook has a lot of interesting information, such as the scale explanations to understand why a vendor received a specific score, and one of the sheets even exposes the ability to adjust custom weightings for the criteria to see how the vendors would match up based on what you prioritize.

Take Advantage Of Access To The Demo Script

It’s critical to me to publish this demo script so you can understand how I measured these capabilities during the Wave demos. You can find the script linked below at the end of this blog. Hopefully, providing you this additional insight will provide a deeper insight into what I’m prioritizing in the market and possibly serve as a template to help you structure your own proofs of concept in the future. Keep in mind that based on the methodology, the capabilities being scored had to be generally available early in the Wave process, and all scores are relative to the market. My expectation from Wave to Wave is that the market is moving, so what is measured has to evolve — or we’d have a benchmark instead of an evaluation.

Enjoy!

EDR Wave Demo Guidance