Channel Choice (solution provider)

Gauging the satisfaction of solutions is a complex subject, particularly with
respect to the solution providers. IDC India undertook a quantitative research
technique through face-to-

face structured interview mode to address the identified objectives across 11
cities amongst 100 solution providers. Of these 37 percent were from West, 29
percent from the North, 24 percent from South and the remainder from East.

The questionnaire focused upon the satisfaction of the solution providers
from the vendors with whom they deal on several parameters on a three-point
scale. For the solution providers segment; at a time three-services categories
were selected on the basis of percentage contribution to revenue and the
satisfaction for the top two vendors for those three services categories was
measured.

The results of the satisfaction measurement were factored with the importance
that respondents attach to each criterion used for evaluation. Since one
solution provider can often deal with two vendors for one product, the sample
size of the respondents in a particular category could be more than total base
of the survey.

SECURITY SOLUTIONS

The security solutions encom-pass anti-virus, firewalls, anti-spam and
hardware security appliances. McAfee emerged as the winner in this category with
an overall satisfaction rating of 91 percent. Its scores for product quality,
marketing, after sales, commercial and online support are 93, 88, 89, 90 and 93
percent, respectively. Its score for relationship manage-ment was 92 percent.

VIRTUALIZATION

In this category VMware led over Microsoft with overall satisfaction of 89
percent. Of the 35 solution providers who chose VMware, 94 percent were happy
with its product quality, 92 percent and 91 percent were happy for after sales
and commercial support, respect-ively. It also scored 85 percent for marketing
and online support, each, while it also got 86 percent for relationship
management.

STRUCTURED CABLING

Structured cabling is building or campus telecommunications cabling
infrastructure that consists of a number of standardized smaller elements (hence
structured) called subsystems.

D-Link India was the winner in this category this year as well, while Tyco
Electronics remained at second place.   

D-Link scored 89 percent in overall satisfaction from its 35 solution providers
where it got the highest points for its product quality (93 percent), followed
by after sales support (91 percent), online support (89 percent) and
relationship management and commercial support (88 percent).

BUSINESS APPLICATIONS

IBM reigned in this category with 94 percent of overall satisfaction rating
from over 28 partners. It got the highest rating (98 percent) for its marketing
support and 95 percent each for its product quality, after sales, and online
support. Its lowest score (87 percent) was for commercial support, which means
that it needs to incentivize its partners better to gain their complete loyalty.

DQC Team