2009 Channel Champs: 10 Best Vendors In Support

How do your A-list vendors compare when it comes to providing support for their customers? The Channel Champs survey rated 115 vendors across 24 product and service categories. Solution providers rated those vendors on a number of criteria, including several in support.

Here now are the 10 vendors who performed the best in the following support criteria: Education and Enablement; Evaluation/Demo Equipment Policies; General Availability of Technical Training for all Solution Providers; Postsales Support; and Presales Support.

Those ratings culminated in an overall score indicating how well a vendor supports its VAR.

Score: 70.9

Oracle's scores in the Systems & Network Management Software category placed the vendor tenth out of all surveyed vendors for Support Factors. Although it did not capture a No. 1 ranking in any of this subcategory's criteria, it did handily beat Microsoft in Postsales Support.

Score: 71.3

Hewlett-Packard's performance in the Systems & Network Management Software category earned it ninth place out of all surveyed vendors for Support Factors.

HP won two of the five criteria: Presales and Postsales Support. In Education and Enablement, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle came in ahead of HP. In Evaluation/Demo Equipment Policies, Microsoft and Oracle beat HP, and in Tech Training, Microsoft took the lead.

HP won the overall Systems & Network Management Software category.

Score: 71.5



IBM's scores from the Data & Information Management category put it in eighth place in the Support Criteria out of all vendors in the entire survey.



Within the category, IBM finished a photo-finish second to Microsoft in Support Factors. The vendor did, however, steal the Postsales Support criteria from Microsoft by three points and Presales by more than four.



IBM came in second in the Data & Information Management category, with an overall Channel Champs rating of 72.4 vs. Microsoft's 72.8.

Score: 71.6

Microsoft had the seventh-highest score in the Support Factors Criteria of all the vendors in the entire survey.

Within the Collaboration category, Microsoft won two of the five criteria, edging out IBM in Education and Enablement, and in Technical Training. Microsoft came in second in the remaining three criteria to IBM.

Microsoft came in a very close second in Collaboration, with an overall Channel Champs rating of 72.1 vs. IBM's 72.4.

Score: 71.7

Microsoft came in sixth place out of all surveyed vendors in the Support Factors Criteria.

Within this product subcategory, Microsoft won three of the five criteria: Education and Enablement, Evaluation/Demo Equipment Policies, and Availability of Technical Training. In Education and Enablement, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle came in ahead of HP. In Evaluation/Demo Equipment Policies, Microsoft and Oracle beat HP, and in Tech Training, Microsoft took the lead.

Score: 71.7

Coming in fifth place out of all surveyed vendors in the Support Factors Criteria, is Microsoft.

In the Systems & Network Management category, Microsoft came in first place in three categories, with its highest score in Technical Training -- a criterion in which it beat CA by more than 12 points. However, Microsoft lost some luster in Postsales Support, coming in ahead of only Novell, which finished last overall in the category.

Microsoft placed third overall in Systems & Network Management, after Channel Champ HP and IBM/Tivoli.

Score: 71.8

Fourth place of all surveyed vendors, in the Support Factors Criteria, belongs to Microsoft.

Within the Middleware category, Microsoft did particularly well in Education and Enablement, and Evaluation/Demo Equipment Policies, beating its closest competitor IBM by roughly seven points in each criterion. Although it slipped slightly in Presales and Postsales Support, Microsoft earned the Channel Champ title for the subcategory.

Score: 72.4

Cisco's performance in Support Factors earned it third place of all vendors in the entire survey.

Cisco had a clean sweep of all the Support criteria in the VoIP/UC category. Its largest margin of victory came in Education and Enablement, where it beat last-place D-Link by almost 15 points.

Score: 72.5

IBM earned the second-highest score in the Support Factors Criteria of all vendors in the entire survey.

Despite fierce competition from Microsoft, IBM wound up on top in Support Factors within the Collaboration category -- due to its strong scores in Presales and Postsales Support.

IBM was the ultimate leader in the Collaboration category, with an overall Channel Champs rating of 72.4.

Score: 74.9

Xerox earned the highest score in the Support Factors Criteria of all vendors in the entire survey.

Within the Workgroup Color Printers category, Xerox came out on top in all of the five criteria that make up the Support Factors criteria. Its largest margin of victory was in Postsales Support, in which it beat last-place Samsung by more than 14 points.

Xerox also had the top score in the entire survey in Financial Factors. Xerox was the overall winner in the Workgroup Color Printers category, with a Channel Champs rating of 79.2.