Six Vendors See Decline In Channel Satisfaction Ratings

The results reveal that six of the 19 vendors included the survey have seen significant declines in channel satisfaction over the past four months, and of those six, four have shown large dips month over month. Twelve have seen some decline during the same period.

The channel satisfaction survey is part of CRN's Monthly Research Report, which measures channel relations, solution provider technology and customer spending outlooks, and corporate IT spending budgets. The latest research report reflects the opinion of several hundred solution providers and corporate IT spending decision- makers from February surveys.

>> Midsize-company spending will increase in security and wireless arenas, the survey says.

Vendors that saw the largest decline in channel satisfaction during the November-to-February period were Oracle and Lexmark, which each dropped 17 points to 42 percent and 30 percent satisfaction rates, respectively. Advanced Micro Devices, Veritas Software and Novell all lost 12 points.

Chris Vandivere, vice president at Engraphix Imaging Systems, an integrator in Houston, said many of the vendors that have been unsupportive of the channel recently are focused on hardware. He said, however, that his company maintains good relationships with most of its software partners.

"We've seen some vendors that are turning their backs on the channel and they are beginning to flounder," he said.

In one case, Vandivere said Engraphix has taken away about 30 percent of its business from one of its key document imaging hardware vendors because of channel issues, though he declined to name that partner.

Sun Microsystems saw the most significant increase over the past six months, with a gain of 12 points to 67 percent. A large portion of that jump can be attributed to an increase of 8 points in the January-to-February period.

In the area of IT business spending, the CRN Monthly Research Report showed continued strength in the technology budgets of midsize companies.

Fifty percent of midsize companies expect to increase spending over the next 12 months, particularly in the areas of security, intranet development, wireless, Web services and supply chain management.

Only 12 percent of the respondents said they expect to decrease their IT spending while 38 percent said it would stay at current levels.

Solution providers also said they expect strong sales in the area of security. Among the top 10 products for which solution providers have the highest sales expectations are antispam and antivirus applications, firewalls and VPNs.

Also making the list in February was VoIP. Solution providers' sales expectations for this category have been growing steadily over time, increasing 14 points since March 2004.