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Every year, CRN offers solution providers the opportunity to rate their vendors in a number of criteria, which culminates in our Annual Report Card. So this year, what do the vendors that VARs rate tops in their fields have in common? Despite being spread out among 18 different product categories, virtually every vendor that came in first place also achieved very high scores in Quality.
In all but four categories, the vendor with the highest Quality score won the overall top score in the product category. For example, Intel's whopping 107 in quality for Processors and Platforms roundly beat competitor AMD's 93.8. Intel won the overall Product category by 9 points. And that score of 107, incidentally, was the highest for any criteria in the entire survey.
In the three categories that did not see the overall winner take quality kudos--Client Security Software, Enterprise Networking Infrastructure and Volume Mainstream Servers--the overall category winner scored within a few points of the Quality criteria winner. Only in Midrange High-End Servers did the category winner, Dell, score significantly behind the Quality champ, IBM. IBM's 96.7 trumped Dell's 86.7 in Quality, but Dell beat IBM in Partnership, leading to IBM's ultimate defeat in the category.
Every year, the ARC survey offers insight as to how vendors are performing in respective categories as well as by 18 criteria (go to CRN.com/research to see detailed report cards of each vendor). All the scores are based on the results of our surveys of solution providers. Every vendor is evaluated by respondents that work specifically with that vendor.
Following are other notable top-line findings to help solution providers find the best vendor for the technology solutions they are implementing today and may need for tomorrow.
