IBM Delivers Strongest ROI, Channel Support With I

he strength of IBM's channel programs, coupled with strong price/performance and return on investment, made IBM and its WebSphere Portal the favorite with solution providers in this year's CRN Channel Champions poll.

IBM won in the portals category with an overall satisfaction rating of 75.5 out of 100 points. That put the vendor ahead of Plumtree Software (73.5) and BEA Systems (71). Further down in the pack, in fourth, fifth and sixth places, respectively, were Computer Associates International (66.9), SAP (65.2) and Microsoft (64.3).

The survey polled solution providers on their satisfaction with vendors on 12 criteria. IBM showed strength across the board, earning the highest rating in nine of those areas. Only large solution providers were polled in this category.

In the technical areas, IBM placed first in product quality and reliability, security and price/performance. Plumtree was IBM's closest competitor here, holding the edge in scalability and ease of integration/accessibility.

IBM did particularly well in price/performance, where its score of 74.9 was 3.1 points ahead of Plumtree's 71.8.

IBM's big differentiator among portal vendors is its clear-cut pricing model and the collaborative features found in WebSphere Portal Express, said Jim Murphy, managing director of Principle Software, Cambridge, Mass.

"Plumtree has great mind share and a good installed base," Murphy said. "But I think IBM's cross-portfolio strategy is a powerful one."

IBM fell behind Plumtree in ease of integration/accessibility by 1.4 points but still came in second among the six vendors with a score of 84.8.

"From an ease-of-integration and configuration standpoint, IBM's product is not the easiest to install or configure because it's very complex," said Eric Simone, senior managing director of Perficient, a solution provider based in Austin, Texas. "So, in a way, you may be paying at the front end to get things configured or installed properly, but you're still benefiting from an ROI standpoint in overall connectivity and openness."

Joe Eldridge, portal practice director at New York-based Agency.com, said most portal products are still evolving so they don't really work out of the box. But because IBM's WebSphere is a J2EE implementation, it's relatively easy to integrate with other systems and easy to modify, and it effectively supports custom Web services, he said.

IBM widened its lead in the channel areas, where it scored the highest marks on six of the nine criteria. Here, however, BEA proved to be a strong contender, taking the runner-up position in four areas.

IBM earned superior marks in return on investment, where it scored 6.1 points ahead of BEA.

"IBM has strength over its competitors [in ROI] because its portal is part of an overall e-business framework, so you're not just implementing a silo solution," said Perficient's Simone. "You're implementing an infrastructure that allows you to plug into your other systems very easily. It's very open architecture."

IBM also did well in long-term channel strategy, where it beat Plumtree by 4 points, and in face-to-face contact or calls, where its score was 4.6 points higher than BEA's. "IBM has gotten much better on the channel side in the last few years because they're more willing to listen, to put a face to a conversation, to put someone on the phone," Simone said.

The champion, however, did lose its crown in one channel area: keeping solution providers informed of changes. There, Plumtree beat IBM by 4.9 points.

While IBM is an important partner and typically responsive, such a large company can at times be a bear to deal with, Eldridge said. "Their Web site alone is huge. We must have a dozen or more user names and passwords just to get onto various software pages of that site," he said.

Jerry Gschwind, director of channel marketing for WebSphere Portal, said IBM is working toward tighter integration of business partners on its portal marketing campaigns,those geared at internal sales teams and those aimed at IBM customers. Increased software revenue for partners and enhancements to portal ROI tools are also on the 2003 agenda, Gschwind said.

"We're really investing right now in our ability to scale our partner enablement activities," he said.