Integrated Development Environments: Microsoft
Improvements to the user experience around Microsoft’s MSDN Web site and developer anticipation of the Visual Studio 2005 new team system may have propelled Microsoft ahead of the pack, but its technical and partner support have remained consistently superior to other vendors for several years, said Chris Menegay, president of Notion Solutions, a Dallas-based training and consulting firm.
Microsoft and its Visual Studio won a resounding victory in the integrated development environment category in the 2005 CRN Channel Champions Survey, earning top scores on both technical and channel criteria.
The Redmond, Wash., software giant knocked IBM out of first place for the Channel Champion title this year after receiving an overall satisfaction rating of 79.1, a solid 4.8 points higher than IBM (74.3) and an even wider spread over third-ranked Borland, rated at 71.3. Oracle came in fourth at 70.3.
Microsoft won all of the most heavily weighted technical and channel criteria, including product quality and reliability, ROI and tool integration. Its widest lead was a 10.3-point margin over IBM in the area of project management tools.
One .Net developer said he was not surprised by Microsoft’s sweeping victory, given the momentum of Visual Studio. “Microsoft’s .Net app development and patterns and practices have grown, and the support given to partners is excellent,” said Tim Huckaby, CEO of InterKnowlogy, Carlsbad, Calif.
IBM, which beat Microsoft in this category last year by one point, has since enhanced its developers’ experience through the integration of its Rational application life-cycle tools with its Eclipse IDE. But that apparently wasn’t enough. Solution providers said Microsoft’s integration tools, combined with its additional component support, price/performance and project management tools—and anticipated integration of team system services into the forthcoming Visual Studio 2005—made it a shoe-in for Channel Champion this year.
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In technical satisfaction, Microsoft earned a score of 87.6, substantially ahead of IBM’s 82.6, Borland’s 79.3 and Oracle’s 77.1.
“Visual Studio .Net is still the class of the pack—and there is nowhere else to go if you build for .Net,” said John Parkinson, a chief technology officer at Capgemini.
Microsoft was equally strong on channel-program criteria. It pulled 4.6 points ahead of IBM in channel areas. It did particularly well on the criteria of responsiveness to solution provider feedback, technical education, visibility and vendor support over the life cycle of a project.