That's a pretty impressive jump given that the company is in a niche segment. It's possibly because of the aggressive marketing that the company has been doing about its data center offerings. APC terms it as NCPI or Network Critical Physical Infrastructure. We see a new entrant this year in Acer, although it finishes last.
Though we have rankings down to 35 positions, we've only shown the top twenty. In this, we see Computer Associates managing to remain in the top twenty list in certain questions, but then disappears from the final rankings. Symantec and McAfee continue to remain amongst the top twenty brands, possibly because security is on everyone's mind today and these are the two pure-play players in the field. Epson received the highest points for the first question, but ultimately finished at the number seven rank. Even more interesting is the fact that none of the winners were amongst the top three in the first question. IBM got the top rank in the familiarity list, after which HP-Compaq remained on top for the rest of the questions. Microsoft, which won the award two years ago, managed to remain number two in the Relevant, and Trust lists. After that, IBM took over as runner up in the Recommend, and Overall list. Cisco appeared second in the Heard list, after which it remained a constant number four across all lists.
Another surprising one was D-Link, which moved up from number seven last year to the number five this time. Like Cisco, this brand also remained number five across the Familiar, Relevant, Trust, and Recommend lists. Oracle falls after that, not budging from its number six position from last year. It moved up from being number ten in Heard, moved up to seven in Familiar, and finally remained at number six across Relevant, Trust, and Recommend. Intel, which had a fixation for number five position last year, has slipped down to number eight this year. It was interesting to see Intel fixed on this position across all the lists.
Brand
Equity |
Heard |
Epson |
1 |
Cisco |
2 |
D-Link |
2 |
HP-Compaq |
3 |
IBM |
3 |
Microsoft |
3 |
Dell |
3 |
Intel |
4 |
LG
Electornics |
4 |
Oracle |
5 |
Samsung |
6 |
Seagate |
6 |
Canon |
6 |
Logitech |
6 |
Sun
Microsystems |
7 |
Symantec |
8 |
|
|
Brand
Equity |
Familiar |
IBM |
1 |
HP-Compaq |
2 |
Microsoft |
3 |
Cisco |
4 |
D-Link |
5 |
Epson |
5 |
Oracle |
6 |
Dell |
7 |
Samsung |
8 |
Intel |
9 |
Seagate |
10 |
Symantec |
11 |
Canon |
12 |
SAP |
13 |
APC |
14 |
McAfee |
15 |
|
|
Brand
Equity |
Relevant |
HP-Compaq |
1 |
Microsoft |
2 |
IBM |
3 |
Cisco |
4 |
D-Link |
5 |
Oracle |
6 |
Epson |
7 |
Intel |
8 |
Seagate |
9 |
Samsung |
10 |
Dell |
11 |
Symantec |
11 |
McAfee |
12 |
APC |
13 |
SAP |
14 |
Toshiba |
15 |
|
|
Brand
Equity |
Trust |
HP-Compaq |
1 |
Microsoft |
2 |
IBM |
3 |
Cisco |
4 |
D-Link |
5 |
Oracle |
6 |
Intel |
7 |
Epson |
8 |
Samsung |
9 |
Symantec |
10 |
Seagate |
11 |
Dell |
12 |
APC |
13 |
McAfee |
14 |
SAP |
15 |
Toshiba |
16 |
|
|
Brand
Equity |
Recommend |
HP-Compaq |
1 |
IBM |
2 |
Microsoft |
3 |
Cisco |
4 |
D-Link |
5 |
Oracle |
6 |
Intel |
7 |
Epson |
8 |
Samsung |
9 |
Symantec |
10 |
Seagate |
11 |
Dell |
12 |
SAP |
13 |
APC |
14 |
McAfee |
15 |
Toshiba |
16 |
|
|
Brand
Equity |
Brand
Equity |
HP-Compaq |
100 |
IBM |
98 |
Microsoft |
97 |
Cisco |
96 |
D-Link |
90 |
Oracle |
87 |
Epson |
85 |
Intel |
84 |
Samsung |
82 |
Seagate |
81 |
Dell |
79 |
Symantec |
78 |
APC |
73 |
SAP |
72 |
McAfee |
72 |
Toshiba |
70 |
|
|
Interestingly, we find several brands missing this time, which were there last year. For instance, Sun Microsystems appeared in the first question, but disappeared completely after that. Incidentally, Sun finished on the 12th rank last year. Logitech met a similar fate, appearing in the first question, and then disappearing from the top twenty list.
The methodology for arriving at the best MNC brands remains the same as that for the Best Indian brands. We administered a combined list of both brands to the respondents, and after getting the results split them into two.
Arch-rivals Samsung and LG both appeared in Heard, but LG disappeared after that. Samsung went till the end to finish at nine. Seagate, Dell, Toshiba, and SAP remained in the top twenty rankings across all the lists. 3Com, though not as active as it once was in the networking world, still has a name for itself. The brand couldn't manage in Heard, but remained in top twenty in the rest of the lists. RedHat was the only pure Linux brand that managed to remain in the top twenty list. Novell, which now owns Suse, managed to finish at the 26th position. It's pretty interesting to see how various brands compete against each other in the users' mind. If we dig just a little deeper, it becomes quite evident about how they managed to get a particular rank. Companies that have been active and visible in the market manage to remain on the top of users' minds.