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Top 40 IT Vendors Rated
An anonymous reader writes "CIO Insight has asked its readers to rate their satisfaction with their vendors. Not surprisingly, 'CIOs are disappointed and disgruntled with the performance of their most important vendors. In fact, the number of companies with lower scores in 2006 than in 2005 outpaces those with higher scores by a margin of two to one.' In first place was CDW, edging out last year's top vendor, Red Hat, which tied for third place this year. Microsoft came in at number 24. The coverage includes a detailed methodology on how the survey was conducted. 826 qualified respondents participated."
I worked for one of these companies, and they come in the bottom five.... I'll not name the company, good luck in your quest to figure it out.
They laid me off after 21 years, a RCH away from full retirement with benefits... go figure. I was in the middle of a research project that would've connected the corporate on-line directory to APIs for IP phones (this was 3 years) ago. There was an entire team ready to fund my work and we figured in addition to increased productivity, there would be incredible hard dollars savings (no we hadn't done the business case yet). It was a promising project and there was a lot of buzz around it.
But, meanwhile, my real responsibilities were to be on the team that created the public facing web site...
Here's why a company like this doesn't end up in the top ratings: our team implemented the web site in .net 1.1 after
almost completely creating a java version of it -- Microsoft
convinced "us" it was important. And of course it was equally
important to port it to .net 2 when that came out, what a
nightmare.... those were decisions being made at the managerial
level. It didn't matter all of the extra work added
zero value to the customer experience, it
mattered we had .net 2.0.
At the team level, I once forgot to capitalize an object or method correctly and was confronted by a peer. This was a day after the code was checked in, tested, and part of the working code. He insisted/demanded it be made kosher, and we spent a little more than half a day getting it "fixed". (I know someone's going to say that's an easy fix... it isn't when the re-factoring tools don't work the way they're supposed to and you have to start pulling in the threads by hand -- and that's what we had to do.)
And our internal clients? Wow... we spent meeting after meeting trying to all agree on buttons and their shape and their color... mind you this was an argument about the shade of button, not selecting from a pallette of colors.
Attention to service for real outside customers? Nil.
Yeah, I liked the company once, it might be apparent on many levels why I don't now. By the time they booted me, I was reminded of the ill-fated Eastern Airlines crash all for the sake of paying too much attention to some landing gear lights while the plane slowly flew into the ground. Way too much attention to virtually irrelevant detail and way too little attention to customer satisfaction.
That seems a bit funny, considering how Dell has usually been more customer/sales focused, as opposed to the focus on technology by HP. The Laptop-that-blew-up must not be helping their ratings either ;)
I don't know how it is in other countries but where I am, the customer support of Dell is outsourced to other companies. Even Siemens is one of the support vendors. And a lot of these people have close to zero knowledge on Linux. Considering the fact that Dell (kindof) supports RHEL, thats pretty stupid.
I've personally had to deal with morons from Dell support. One guy came in to fit a new server on our rack, and he came in with wrongly sized nuts for the rails. We redirected the surveillance cam at him to grab 50 minutes of him RTFM.. which I later showed to the management.
Needless to say our next server will be an HP.
I love humanity, it is people I hate
So that obnoxious techie on the CDW TV commercials is actually right?
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
Well, according to the page, 17% of the companies questioned dealt with Apple. So I assume it's a case where not too many people do, but those who do are pretty happy.
I was amused by the individual rankings, though. Apple's highest scores came in "increasing revenue", "solves problems", and "high quality." Apple's lowest scores were "costs", "return on investment" (related to cost), and "flexible and responsive." In others words, they love Macs but they think they cost too much.
Since when do CIOs know about this kind of stuff? I have yet to encounter someone in an upper position like that who is aware of this sort of thing, although they do all have opinions regardless of actual experience.
My manager loves Best Buy for Business and Tiger Direct for instance; even though we get superior service and pricing through GovConnection forget that! Too convenient.
Can't keep Belkin and Belden straight either.
Microsoft cracked the top 40 list. Looks like all that hardwork is paying off!
I guess this survey puts a nail in the coffin of the "you don't have somebody to blame" whinging you hear on /. all the time. RedHat not only gives you somebody to blame but they are more responsive and responsible then oracle, MS, IBM, Sun, Novell and just about everybody else.
This has got to be a massive sales tool for a company that relies on service to make money.
evil is as evil does
Where's newegg? Out of the 10 vendors on that list who I have bought from, none of there customer support comes close to newegg. Not to mention newegg ships stuff at record speeds.
The saying used to be, "No one ever got fired for choosing IBM." These days it's, "No one ever got fired for choosing Microsoft." It's not about choosing the best product/service/supplier. It's all about covering one's ass.
-- Will program for bandwidth
This list somewhat confirms what I've been telling a lot of people - the technology industry is becoming WalMartified. Sales of commodity technologies: servers, switches, routers, monitors, phones, etc. are best purchased through national (or global) vendors, like CDW. These places have the size, scope, and presence to consistently deliver the best prices and service. In contrast, regional or local VARs are dying. They can't compete with CDW on price, service or availability. Most regional or local VARs are struggling to survive on their paltry margins from the manufacturers.
However, there is a healthy market for smaller, boutique consultants and specialty providers, especially for security. These places are thriving because they DON'T play into the margin game. They focus on specific services or expertise, areas where CDW isn't a good fit.
If you think about this practice, it makes sense. Where do you go to buy something when you know EXACTLY what you want? If you're like me, you go to BestBuy or WalMart or some such big retailer, because you know they will have the product and at a decent price. A local shop is less likely to have what you want and will probably charge more.
However, where do you go when you don't know what you want? Well, if you're like most people, you hire a professional to help you pick out what you need and implement it. I know nothing about roofing, for example. As such, I hire a roofing expert to help me pick out the right products and get my roof installed. I know I pay more from the roofers, but assuming I trust the roofers, I know that they will guide me into a educated decision.
The technology industry is falling along the same lines. If you know what you want, get it from CDW. If you aren't sure, or need consulting help, look for a local shop with expertise.
More likely, IMHO, these are companies that have an Art/Video department and use Macs in that department. Also, 65% of the companies depended on Apple as a software vendor. I'll rashly assume this means products like Final Cut, Logic, FileMaker, WebObjects, and the QuickTime server software.
http://picasaweb.google.com/SkillWater/BRAINWASH/p hoto#5005252477500827698CDW Catalog Scan 1
http://picasaweb.google.com/SkillWater/BRAINWASH/p hoto#5005252670774356034CDW Catalog Scan 2
Back in 1998 I ordered WindowsNT Server software from CDW. When an advetised rebate was not included I called them on it. After the call I received this catalog in the mail.
CDW Says "Jerk Off" to it's customers.
(This is the actual scan of my CDW catalog)
-EnJoY My wAste
The (and with The I mean 'Teh')Real
Reason why CIOs are disappointed
and disgruntled with the performance
of their most important vendors is...
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