Hard Facts: April 29, 2002

>> 'When the enterprise market is sour, vendors bend over backward to help smaller players. But once big companies start spending again, vendors forget who they are.' -- Pete Busam, COO at Decisive Business Systems, Pennsauken, N.J.

The March channel satisfaction index stood at 24.9 percent, up from 16.5 percent in February but below the recent high of 26.9 percent in December. The index is measured as the average of the percentage of solution providers expressing satisfaction with channel programs minus the percentage expressing dissatisfaction for 11 major software vendors.

Microsoft's index figure was 43 percent in March, up from 25 percent in February and the highest figure CRN has recorded for this vendor since surveying began nearly a year ago. Some 63 percent of solution providers expressed satisfaction, while only 19 percent said they were dissatisfied.

Other vendors that posted strong March index figures included Red Hat, Veritas Software and VeriSign.

The higher satisfaction levels could be attributed in part to vendors paying more attention to solution providers servicing the SMB sector in light of the continuing lack of growth in technology spending by large companies.

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