Gabriel Consulting Unveils Key Findings of 2010 x86 Server Vendor Research
HP, IBM and Dell score service and sales wins; Oracle drops; many see little difference between major vendors
BEAVERTON, Oregon – Feb. 24, 2011 — Gabriel Consulting Group (GCG), an independent analyst firm, today released key findings of its fourth annual 2010 x86 Server Vendor Preference survey, a report focused on vendor selection trends among 199 enterprise data center managers responsible for data centers of all sizes.
Key findings from the ‘Vendor Face-Off: Sales and Services’ section of the survey include:
- Enterprise x86 users gave solid marks to all the major vendors – Dell, HP, IBM and Oracle – when asked who provides the best value for their service dollar; Dell led the pack.
- IBM won both the ‘Break/Fix and Maintenance Services’ and ‘Professional Services’ survey categories by wide margins. The other vendors’ results reflected changes:
o Dell improved significantly on Break/Fix Services, but dropped on Professional Services
o HP results slid a bit on all service categories compared to last year
o Oracle scores dropped significantly on both maintenance and professional categories
However, on several of the questions in this section of the survey, vendor ratings dropped overall; customers said either they didn’t see a difference between vendors, or they weren’t sure which vendor did the best job. Roughly a third of these respondents answered ‘Not Sure’ or ‘No Difference,’ which is higher than in previous editions of the survey. This presents a major challenge to the x86 server vendors as they strive to differentiate themselves and one-up their competitors in a challenging economic environment.
Additional key findings include:
- HP scored a solid win on ‘Best Channel Organization.’
o Dell’s results improved slightly, while IBM’s slid a bit vs. last year.
o Oracle dropped significantly.
- All four major vendors earned solid scores for ‘Best Direct Sales,’ with HP winning the category. Scores for IBM, Oracle and Dell were tightly clumped together, but significantly behind HP.
“We saw more customers than ever before saying they weren’t sure or that there isn’t any difference between vendors on service issues. While this could be an anomaly, it does show that many customers just don’t see much differentiation between the vendors – which should be troubling to them. However, for the customers who do see a difference, the broad results are reasonably positive for all of the vendors except Oracle – where we see big drops in customer satisfaction in almost every service and sales category,” said Dan Olds, principal analyst at GCG.
GCG is also releasing findings from other sections of the 2010 x86 Server Vendor Preference survey. More information and detailed results are available here. Follow Dan Olds on Twitter @danolds.
About Gabriel Consulting Group
Gabriel Consulting Group is a research, analysis, and consulting firm dedicated to helping clients achieve maximum return on their Information Technology investment.
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Contact: Dan Olds
503-372-9389 Office
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