Servers

A no-brainer again that Product is the most important
parameter of CIO satisfaction. Interestingly, the relative importance of other
parameters has gone down in the last one year. Compare this to last year's
survey. What we find this year is that barring price and commercial, which was
at a sub 70 basis points, all the other parameters have moved below the sub 70
range, indicating that the relative importance of these parameters is declining.
While the relative importance may decline, vendors have been working hard to
raise the satisfaction bar. While the CSA Index industry average was pegged at
78.7 last year, the same has moved up to 83.4 this year. However, like last
year, only two players, HP and IBM, have managed to score over the industry
average.

In
terms of ranking, HP continues to hold on its numero uno position for the third
year in a row. Ironically, HP did not top the satisfaction score on any
parameter. Yet, its consistent performance across all the parameters helped it
to retain the top spot. However, last year's number two vendor, HCL
Infosystems, has seen a steep fall. While last year, HCL scored top honors among
CIOs on the product front, it has not been able to do an encore. The other
Indian player, Wipro, has also been edged out of the top three slots and pushed
way below. While Wipro and HCL have improved their satisfaction score, other
vendors have outperformed them in terms of satisfaction levels among their
customers.

The surprise in the pack has been Acer. Acer which has been focusing more on
the non-government and non-deal markets and have spruced up its sales and
marketing activities. That Acer has done a good job in this segment is evident
from the fact that CIOs are highly satisfied and accord it top slots in two of
the five parameters-pre sales and marketing and delivery and installation.
However, Acer needs to beef up its post sales service where it is below the
industry average on all sub-parameters. Sun, at number four, has also raised the
bar quite significantly and CIOs rate it as a company with the best technology
and good warranty/replacement schemes in place.