Channel Choice (Products)

HP India seemed to have its fingers firmly on the pulse of the channel
community as determined by the results of the Channel Satisfaction Survey. There
were a total of 18 product and solution categories and HP India held the
position of “top brand” in five of them. Its closest competition came from
Cisco, which led in three categories.

During the survey, respondents were asked to name a vendor who in their
opinion was the best in each of the 18 product categories. Given a broad
spectrum of products and services covered under the survey, the choice of
reasons was kept generic deliberately so as not to make them product-specific.

The leaders in different product categories were as follows:

This year too, HP was the winner in this category, followed by HCL at second
spot. The partners who voted in favor of HP were 152 in number, giving it an
overall 90 percent satisfaction score. When it came to product quality, HP
scored 91 and 90 percent, respectively, for parameters like marketing support,
after sales support and commercial support. It also scored 88 and 89 percent,
respectively, in online support and relationship management.

HCL got an overall satisfac-tion rating of 87.8 percent from 32 partners
while Lenovo's scored 87.6 percent from 49 partners, in the same regard.

NOTEBOOKS

In this category too, HP India continued to be in the lead and Dell India
also managed to retain its second position of the last year.

There were 98 respondents who gave HP 90 percent of the overall satisfaction
rating. HP was further awarded 93 percent of satisfaction marks for its product
quality, followed by 91percent for its marketing support, 90 percent each for
its after sales support and commercial support. It also got 86 and 88 percent
for online support and relationship management, respectively.

Dell got 78 respondents opting for it, with an overall score of 89 percent,
out of which 93 percent were for its product quality, 91 percent for its
marketing support, 89 percent for its online support image, 86 percent for its
relationship management and another 90 percent for its after sales service and
commercial support.

INKJET PRINTERS

Like last year, HP India was at the forefront followed by Canon India and
Epson India.

HP, Canon and Epson overall had good satisfaction with 90 percent, 89 percent
and 86 percent, respectively.

When it came to product quality HP scored 90 percent, while Canon and Epson
scored 91 percent and 87 percent, respectively. After the sales support, HP and
Canon scored 90 percent each while Epson trailed behind with 87 percent. In
marketing support, HP and Canon scored 90 and 89 percent, respectively, while
Epson stood at 85 percent.

X86 SERVERS

Both HP India and IBM managed to retain its slot this time, as the first and
second leaders in X86 server product category. There were 63 partners who gave
HP an overall rating of

92 percent, with 94 percent each for its product quality and online support, 93
percent for marketing support, 91 percent each for commercial support and
relationship management and 90 percent for after sales support.

IBM managed to gain 48 responses, with an overall satisfaction of 91 percent.
Of this, it got 93 percent for product quality, 91 percent each for marketing
support, after sales support and relationship management, 91 percent for
commercial support and 98 percent for online support.

MONITORS

LG dislodged Samsung from the top slot this year and pushed it down to
second position in the channel satisfaction rating. But the margin of the
difference in the ratios of these three brands is very low. LG's overall
satisfaction was 87.9 percent, Samsung scored 87.5 percent and AOC stood at 87.3
percent.

LG got its highest ratings for product quality at 91 percent, followed by
after sales support at 90 percent and marketing support at 89 percent. Its
commercial support was 87 percent in channel satisfaction while relationship
management and online support garnered 86 and 85 percent, respectively.

Samsung, at 91 percent scored high on its product quality, followed by 88
percent each for marketing support and after sales support. It scored 85 percent
each for online support and relationship management and 87 percent for
commercial support.

HARD DISK DRIVES

Samsung moved up from its second slot to claim the top positionby satisfying
90 percent of its channel while Seagate moved down with 87 percent satisfaction.

Samsung gained a march over Seagate in all categories with 85 percent in
marketing, 87 percent in after sales, 89 and 88 percent in commercial and online
support and 86 percent in relationship management, respectively. In product
quality, however, Seagate scored 1.2 percent more than Samsung with 93 percent
satisfaction. In the other categories mentioned above it, scored 85, 87, 89 and
83 percent, respectively.

PROCESSORS

Intel once again won first place this year with 123 votes, while AMD came
second place with 56 votes.

Intel's product quality got 93 percent satisfied partners, while it bagged 90
percent votes for its marketing, after sales, commercial and online support and
89 percent for relationship management.

There were 93 percent of AMD's customers who were satisfied with its product
quality, while 90 percent were happy with its marketing, after sales, commercial
and online support. Another 89 percent voted favorably for its relationship
management.

LASER PRINTERS

Like the year before, HP India again emerged as the leader, while Canon came
second. Partners who chose HP and Canon, respectively, were 65 and 44, and both
the brands scored an overall satisfaction rate of 91 and 90 percent.

HP scored 93 percent for product quality, 91 percent each for marketing
support, commercial, relationship management and online support, and 90 percent
for after sales support.

Canon's highest satisfaction score came from its product quality, which was
93 percent. For commercial support and online support it gained 91 percent each,
and it scored 89 percent for after sales and relationship management.

TAPE DRIVES

In the secondary storage category this year, Sony displaced HP as the winner
while HP scaled down. Sony's overall satisfaction was 97 percent, while HP
scored 92 percent. Sony scored 97 percent satisfaction in product quality,
marketing and online support,and 98 and 95 percent in after sales support and
relationship management.

HP lost to Sony largely on its relationship management which was 86 percent.
With an overall satisfaction of 92 percent, it scored the highest (95 percent)
in product quality, 93 percent in marketing and after sales support, 92 percent
in commercial support and 94 percent in online support.

WIRELESS NETWORKING

The wireless LAN category includes PCI cards, wireless switches, wireless
routers,bridge and access points.

A wireless LAN or WLAN is the linking of two or more computers or devices
using spread-spectrum or OFDM modulation technology for enabling communication
between devices in a limited area. This gives users the mobility to move around
within a broad coverage area while still being connected to the network.

D-Link India lost its top slot position to Cisco and moved to the second
position this year. Cisco got an overall satisfaction rating of 96 percent, of
which it secured 97 percent for product quality and online support, each. It
also got 96 percent for after sales support and 95 percent each for marketing,
commercial support and relationship management.

D-link got an overall satisfaction of 90 percent. It scored 94 percent in
product quality, 92 percent in commer-cial support, 91 percent in after sales
support, 90 percent

in relationship management, 89 percent in marketing support and 86 percent in
online support.

UPS

APC India gave away its top slot position to Microtek, which got an overall
satisfaction score of 92 percent and it secured same rating for its product
quality, marketing and commercial support as well. It got 93 percent for
relationship management and 91 percent for online support.

MOTHERBOARDS

A whopping 112 partners opted for Intel while 64 chose Asus and both the
companies had an overall satisfaction of 89 and 87 percent, respectively.

Intel came up as the winner in terms of its product quality with 93 percent
satisfaction scores, 89 percent each for after sales, marketing and online
support; 88 percent for commercial support and 86 percent for relationship
management.

Asus too scored high on product quality with 92 percent, followed by 89
percent for after sales support, 88 percent for commercial support, 86 percent
for marketing support, 83 percent for online support and 82 percent for
relationship management.

WIRED LAN

This category includes routers, switches and modems. A router is a
networking device whose software and hardware is usually tailored to the tasks
of routing and forwarding information. Modem (from modulator-demodulator) is a
device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital informa-tion,
and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted
information.

Cisco managed to reclaim its position by ousting D-link from the number one
position this year. Partners who chose Cisco as their preferred vendor were 50
in all. They gave it an overall satisfaction rating of 94 percent, voting
highest for its product quality at 95 percent, followed by relationship
management, online and after sales support at 94 percent, and marketing and
commercial support at 93 percent each.