Network Storage: HP Rises, Sun Sinks
But it wasn't the number of first-place wins that actually pushed the No. 1 vendor ahead of the other three. In fact, the first-place wins in each of the 15 criteria were well-dispersed among HP, IBM (which came in second) and EMC (which came in third). Sun had 10 fourth-place wins and five third-place wins,which were only third due to a first-place tie among the other three companies.
HP, IBM and EMC each won a subcategory, sharing among them first-, second- and third-place wins, respectively. HP won the support category with a score of 69. IBM came in second with 67, EMC third with 66 and Sun last with 60. Within that subcategory, HP and EMC tied for first place in the presales support criterion with a score of 68. HP tied with IBM for first place in the postsales support criterion with a score of 71. EMC and IBM share the product innovation subcategory win, tying with a score of 72. HP trailed close behind with a score of 71. Sun came in last with a score of 63. IBM grabbed first place in the partnership subcategory, with an overall score of 63. HP and EMC tied for second place with a score of 62. Sun trailed behind with a score of 55.
"The past 18 months have been a challenge for all of us," says Michael Walsh, director of U.S. partner marketing for Sun. "We answer this challenge by continuing to provide channel partners with new iForce Partner programs, powerful products and services, and we are confident we will continue to succeed."
In the end, loyalty pushed HP ahead of EMC and IBM. The vendor's loyalty score of 72 was 10 points higher than IBM's and 15 points higher than EMC's. It was the only second-place win for Sun this year,its score was 64,which is important to note because Sun came in third last year for loyalty.
Worth noting is HP's first-place score because it, in turn, came in last in 2001 for loyalty. However, it may signal a boost with the now-completed merger of HP and Compaq, as Compaq came in first for loyalty last year.
There are also some signs of a renewed sense of quality among HP resellers, demonstrated by program improvement scores. Twenty-eight percent of VAR respondents say that product quality was the greatest area of improvement for HP's channel program since last year. That boost could have come from HP's StorageWorks product line. Those products were formerly part of the Compaq family that received strong scores in the product subcategory in our 2001 survey, ultimately leading to Compaq's second-place win in that subcategory and overall.
Communication was cited as most improved by 15 percent of ARC survey respondents. While fewer VARs rated it as improved in comparison with product quality, it also appears in the survey under the partnership subcategory, which held the highest importance rating out of all four subcategories,deeming it an important criterion to watch. Channel relations follows, with 13 percent of VARs rating it most improved, while responsiveness and partnering was chosen by 12 percent, respectfully.
Overall, last year's scores for network storage were definitely higher than this year's. That's important to keep in mind when looking at Sun's score. True, it's 17 points lower than its first-place score of 77 in 2001, but the top score this year, garnered by HP, was only 68. On the flip side, that does leave an eight-point difference between the top and bottom scores. Last year, there was only a five-point difference between Sun, 77, and the last-place tie score held by HP and IBM: 72.
