In my humble opinion and from experience with customers who apply Gartner MQ results in their decision processes and many IT product vendor experiences with companies I have represented who have been rated by Gartner in their MQ surveys, Gartner is held in high regard by many of those customer organizations I dealt with, and in that regard, IT vendors who participate in the Gartner process, understand the value that Gartner provides. It will be interesting to see if NetScout prevails with its lawsuit contentions.
NetScout has its own peculiar view of the world. Competition in the performance management space and how NetScout responds is more of an issue, in my opinion, than Gartner's current rating, which, if accurate, is indicative of NetScout slippage from its historical leadership role in the PM space.
At the end of the day, this lawsuit will take its course, and the outcome will be whatever it will be.
Gartner will continue with its operations and business model. If as indicated in earlier responses, that Gartner is influenced through relationships built and sustained by the vendor (which seems obvious to many), one could conclude that NetScout has placed a big hurdle for itself in building and sustaining its Gartner relationship - to their own detriment perhaps??