India's Most Wanted IT Brands

Our loyal readers who've been following PCQuest for many years would know

that September issue is special, wherein we track the progress of IT brands in

the country. We've used a variety of methodologies and models in the past, and

every year we make some change to highlight something interesting. Earlier, we

used to track which brands are being used and which ones are likely to be

purchased in the near future by a consumer. This was known as Users' Choice.

Last year, we converted this to the most wanted IT brands, and tracked many

other aspects of a brand like its movement, loyalty, pull, persuasiveness, and

future readiness.

This year, we've gone further with the most wanted IT brands survey and added

a few new things to it. For one, we've increased our sample size for the

enterprise brands part of the survey. We went out to 456 of the 1000 top

enterprises in the country for the survey. Secondly, we've given the future

readiness of each brand in more detail. So apart from saying how future ready is

it, we've also mentioned what's the expected future users' share. In other

words, if each brand has an 'x' number of existing customers. We've shown how

many users is it likely to get in the near future. Last year, we did a separate

online survey for personal consumer brands in the September issue itself. This

year however, we'll be carrying that in the next issue, and will concentrate

only on the enterprise IT brands in this story. Originally, we had kept 22

categories in this segment, which included software, hardware, solutions, as

well as services. However, one of the categories, enterprise all-in-ones had to

be dropped after we received the survey results. Within the target audience we

surveyed, HP is a clear leader in this category, with a very heavy current user

base. In fact, HP owns more than 90% of it. Under such a scenario, it doesn't

make sense analyzing this category, since other players have only marginal

bases.

Key observations



There are several key observations from our survey this time. For one,

familiarity with key brands across various categories is pretty high. So for

every IT category, there are a few key brands that are recalled immediately.

This is good, but not 'good enough', simply because the next level of

association, of trusting the brand enough to use it in the future is not as

enthusiastic. In fact, in most of the cases, it's really low. That's a case

where we say that the brand is just not persuasive enough. Though brands command

the mind share of a lot of people, they're not able to woo the IT buyer and

convert it into business.

There's a joker in the pack



The joker in a pack of cards can be converted into any other card in many

games. Apparently, there's a joker in the pack in our survey as well. When we

asked CIOs to identify brands they'd prefer to buy in the future, a majority of

them were not sure. While we can understand and even expect this to happen for

some categories, we didn't expect it to happen across the board. In some cases,

this figure was as high as 75%. When so many CIOs are not sure of which brand to

choose for the future, it's alarming! It reduces the loyalty of a brand. They

may not switch out to another brand, but they're definitely not sure whether to

continue with the same one.

This observation is alarming indeed, but at the same time, it can be treated

as an opportunity. Vendors who own various brands now have an open space in the

minds of the IT decision makers. They can try and fit their brand there and

ensure that the CIO will not only recall the brand but also prefer to use it in

the future.

Understanding data



There's quite a lot of data we've gathered in this survey, and we've tried

to represent it in the best manner possible so that you can easily understand

it. So, every brand category has been given a page. In this, you'll find our

interpretations of the survey results along with the following four key

elements:

1. Brand Persuasion graph: This graph maps the brand persuasion of key brands
   
   in each category on a logarithmic scale. All brands that are closer to the
   
   diagonal are more persuasive, and those further away from it are less
   
   persuasive. Please see the survey methodology to understand how we calculate
   
   brand persuasiveness.
2. Brand Movement: This 100% stacked bar shows three aspects of each brand in
   
   a particular category. It shows the brand loyalty percentage, i.e. of the
   
   customers who're already using a particular brand, how many are likely to
   
   continue using it in the future as well. It shows the shift out percentage,
   
   i.e. of the existing customers, how many are likely to move out to another
   
   brand. Lastly, we show the percentage of existing customers who're not sure
   
   which brand to shift to in the near future and all these three add up to 100%
   
   who currently own that brand. They're the indecisive lot of CIOs who could
   
   tilt the brand loyalty figure of a particular brand in either way. It's
   
   important for a vendor to leverage such non-surety to its advantage.
3. Brand Momentum: This plots the logarithmic values of the future readiness
   
   of each brand, i.e. its Brand Momentum on a graph. This helps us determine
   
   whether a brand is 'speed' driven, or 'mass' driven. Please see survey
   
   methodology to understand this terminology.
4. Brand MomentuxTM Index Table: This is giving the data to highlight three
   
   critical points. One is a relative index of the momentum of each brand, i.e.
   
   if the top brand is moving at a speed of 100, then how fast are the others
   
   moving relative to it. The other two columns are showing the current user
   
   share and the expected future user share for each brand. Current user share is
   
   the existing number of customers of a particular brand, and the future user
   
   share is the percentage of users that are likely to be using it in the future
   
   based on what's the momentum for a particular brand.

All the write-ups have tried to interpret what's been represented in the

above four graphs. We suggest you go through the survey methodology to

understand the various terms used in this survey to understand it better. We

would also be posting more data from the survey on our forum.

Survey Methodology

Mrutyunjay Mishra and Sanjay Tiwari, JuxtConsult

Our survey this year focuses primarily on the enterprise segment, wherein

we've covered key decision makers from top 1,000 companies in India. We are

really grateful to the 456 key decision makers who could take out time from

their schedule to respond.

Our methodology remains the same as last year. The first question we've asked

each respondent is on 'top of mind recall' for each category. The other two

questions remain the same as last year, wherein the second asks them for their

'most likely' choice of the primary brand if they were to buy the same category

of products in the coming six months and the third asking them to identify the

'primary' brand they currently 'own' for the same product category.

This was to essentially capture and measure both current market (user) share

as well as current mind share of brands. A combination of these two determines

the real 'equity' of the brand; or shall we say its 'future readiness'? To

assess and measure this future 'readiness', we used JuxtConsult's proprietary

Brand Momentuxâ„¢ Model, which is a simple but unique brand tracking model based

on the time tested 'theory of momentum' from the world of physics. Just as the

combination of a body's mass and speed (velocity) is used to measure the

'momentum' with which the body is moving, the combination of a brand's mass (its

current market share) and its speed (its current mind share) can be used to

measure the 'momentum' with which a brand is moving in to the future to compete

for market shares.

So the PCQuest Most Wanted IT Brands have been decided based on their 'future

readiness' (Momentum) evaluated with response of key decision makers in the

enterprise space.

Brand MomentuxTM Model



Each 'measure' in the model reflects a 'milestone' in a consumer's

interaction with the brand during the buying process-from recall to

consideration, to intention to buy, to usage. To measure how well a brand is

performing at each of these 3 critical 'transition points', the JuxtConsult

Brand MomentuxTM Model uses a set of simple but effective diagnostics:

• Brand Persuasion: How much is the consumer
  
  convinced about a brand to not just consider it but also 'prefer' it over
  
  other brands in a particular category (by intending to buy it). It reflects
  
  the 'persuasive' power of the brand (of its positioning, proposition,
  
  benefits, image, value, etc).
• Brand Pull: How much is a brand able to
  
  attract and convince consumers of competing brands or non-users of the
  
  category to prefer or 'switch over' to the brand. It reflects the 'consumer
  
  pull' power of the brand.
• Brand Loyalty: How much is a brand able to
  
  convince its existing consumers to 'continue' to prefer and buy the brand. It
  
  reflects the retention or 'loyalty' power of the brand.

Brand Momentum: It is measured as a combination of the current 'mass' of

consumers the brand has, together with the 'current speed' at which it is

(likely to) gain or lose consumers as a result of its current marketing

performance. Symbolically, brand momentum indicates the future 'market share'

potential of the brand.

The current 'mass' of the brand is measured as the 'cumulative' market (or

user) share the brand has accumulated in the market place. This is reflected by

its existing consumer base (including historical buyers who are still using the

brand).

To measure the 'speed' at which a brand is moving in the market place, the

model uses the three critical speed 'acceleration' factors from the brand's

current performance parameters. These are the brand's current 'persuasion'

power, 'consumer pull' power and 'loyalty' power.



In simple marketing terms, the model states that the number of consumers a brand
is likely to gain in the future depends on how many consumers prefer the brand

today, how many are likely to switch-into the brand and how many are likely to

continue to stay with the brand. We've done this calculation for each brand and

mentioned it in the individual category pages.

Reading charts



The relative position of the brands in a graph needs to be understood and

interpreted in two different ways:

• Firstly, the 'position' of the brand falling on either side of the
  
  diagonal and in any of the four quadrants. This position represents a brand's
  
  'performance' on the measured attribute (brand persuasion, brand pull, brand
  
  loyalty or brand momentum).
• The second way to interpret the graph is to look at the brand's relative
  
  positions along the diagonal starting from the bottom to the top. This
  
  reflects the 'size' of the brand in the market place for the measured
  
  attribute (brand persuasion, brand pull, brand loyalty or brand momentum). The
  
  higher is a brand positioned along the diagonal towards the top, the higher is
  
  its share ('size') for that parameter and a bigger player it is on that
  
  parameter in the market place.

Reading the Brand Momentum Map



The brand falling on the left of the diagonal is being driven more by its

'mass' (current cumulative consumer base) than by its speed accelerators

(current marketing performance): Market Share Driven. It means the brand is

'slowing down' in the race for the future. In contrast, the brand falling on the

right of the diagonal is being driven more by 'speed accelerators' but has a

correspondingly lower cumulative consumer base currently: Mind Share Driven. It

means the brand is 'gearing up' for the race for the future.

Reading the Brand Persuasion Map



If the brand falls on the left of the diagonal then it means that its

conversion from brand recall to intention to buy is relatively lower. This

implies that the brand has been less effective is persuading the consumer who

recalled the brand to also think of buying the brand (for whatever reasons). On

the other hand, for a brand which falls on the right of the diagonal it means

that more consumers are thinking of buying the brand than recalling it. It

implies that the brand has been relatively more effective in persuading the

consumers to not just think about it per se but to think about buying it (for

whatever reasons).

On the other hand, for a brand which falls on the right of the diagonal, more

consumers are thinking of buying the brand than recalling it. It implies that

the brand has been relatively more effective in persuading the consumers to not

just think about it per se but to think about buying it (for whatever reasons).

Reading brand movement



The brand movement graph is a simple representation of any brand's current

users pattern of likely movement, i.e., how many will continue to use the brand

they are using today forms the bottom third of the bar, how many are likely to

move out of the brand (possible switch outs) forms middle third of the bar and

the top third is formed by the ones currently not too sure of which brand they

may move to in the next three months.

Application Servers

Microsoft IAS server stands out as the most persuasive brand in this segment,

even though its cumulative ownership is only 7%, which is less than half that of

the top brand IBM WebSphere. Oracle 9i/10g is also quite persuasive at number

two, followed by Tomcat & IBM WebSphere. IBM enjoys the highest top of mind

recall amongst 38% of the CIOs, but only 10% of them said that they're likely to

buy it in the near future. That's why it stands last in brand persuasion.

Microsoft's IAS also enjoys the highest brand loyalty, which is almost double

of others. About 67% of Microsoft IAS's existing users said that they're not

likely to switch to another brand in the near future. The brand loyalty for all

other brands hovers between 31% and 38%. However, this is not because their

users want to shift to another brand. The shift is miniscule. The only shifts

worth mentioning are for Oracle and Tomcat. About 8% of existing Oracle 9i/10g

users said that they're likely to shift to another brand, and 5% of existing

Tomcat users said the same thing. There's negligible shift amongst IBM's

enterprise users, and zero percent shift amongst Microsoft IAS's current

ownership base.

Besides Microsoft, all other brands have a significant set of uncertain CIOs

who are not sure about which brand are they likely to switch to. These could

swing the brand loyalties to either direction. Coming to brand momentum, IBM

WebSphere is the most future ready, largely due to its current mass. Moreover,

it's got enough momentum in the market to help it grow its future user share to

31% from the existing 19%. That's quite a lot. Oracle has the next highest brand

momentum, and at the current pace, it is likely to gain user share, but only by

5%. Microsoft IAS Server is the next in line, and although its brand momentum is

around 50% of IBM, it's likely to gain user share considerably from the current

7% to more than double at 18%. The brand with the lowest brand momentum is

Tomcat, but even then, it's not likely to loose user share in the future.

Business Intelligence Solutions

SAP's Business Information Warehouse has the highest current cumulative user

base in this segment, and interestingly, is also the most persuasive brand of

the lot. In other categories, the general trend has been that brands with lower

cumulative ownership tend to have higher brand persuasion. Here, it's the

reverse, which shows that SAP has a dominant position in the BI category. The

remaining brands have good spontaneous recall, but the likelihood of purchasing

them is much lower, as can be seen from the graphs. On a relative scale,

Microsoft's SQL Server is the next most persuasive brand, followed by Oracle,

and finally IBM's Intelligent Miner.

SAP also enjoys the highest brand loyalty in this segment, with very few

switch outs. Only 3% of its existing customers said that they're likely to

switch to another brand. There's uncertainty amongst its remaining 63% users

over whether to continue with the same brand or switch out to a different one.

MS SQL Server has the next highest brand loyalty, but at the same time, an

alarming 24% of its existing customers said they're likely to switch to a

different brand. 12% of them are likely to move to Oracle, and 6% each to SAP

and SAS. Oracle is next at 23% brand loyalty, with 10% wanting a switch out to

various other brands, and another 67% as uncertain. IBM has the lowest

percentage of loyal customers at 15%, and another 11% are likely to switch out,

mostly to Oracle and SQL Server. It needs to get hold of the remaining 74%,

who're not sure whether



to continue with the brand or switch out.

The inference is quite obvious from the results in this segment. SAP has the

highest existing mass and also moving with the highest speed... hence, highest

brand momentum. Due to that, it's likely to increase its user base three fold.

Oracle is largely speed driven, because it doesn't have the same mass as SAP.

It's also likely to almost double its current user base if it continues at this

pace. Both IBM and Microsoft's BI brands have relatively very lower brand

momentum. However, if they continue at the current speed, they might increase

their user base by a few percent.

Customer Relationship Management

Despite having a relatively lower cumulative user base amongst the target

audience we went to, Microsoft has the highest brand persuasion. While 10% CIOs

could recall it, 4% said that they were also likely to shift to it. SAP was the

next most persuasive, and also with the highest cumulative user base. Against

the 47% CIOs who could recall it, 10% said they're likely to use it as well.

Oracle was the third most persuasive in this category, and with the second

highest current user base. 10% CIOs could recall it, while 4% were likely to use

it as well. Overall, the brand persuasion levels in this category are pretty

low, because of the top of mind recall vs likely purchase ratio is so low.

Microsoft also enjoys the highest brand loyalty in this segment, but 9% of

its existing customers are likely to shift out, mostly to Oracle. SAP has the

next highest loyal set of customers, and the percentage shift out is also pretty

low, which is good. 66% of its customers were also indecisive over whether to

continue with the brand or shift out. Oracle had the lowest brand loyalty, and

11% of the existing customers wanting to move out. On top of that, a whopping

70% of its customers are not sure about whether to continue with the same brand

or shift out, and it becomes a concern.

SAP has the highest brand momentum, largely due to its current mass. With the

current speed, the brand's doing very well, and could almost triple its current

user base. Microsoft is largely a speed driven brand, and though its relative

brand momentum is lower than SAP, it is surging ahead at a rapid pace. It's

likely to considerably increase its future user share. Oracle also doesn't have

to worry, despite a lower brand momentum. It's also likely to increase its

future user base at the current speed. The overall scenario in this segment is

that brand loyalties are low, with a lot of uncertainty over which brand to

choose. A little bit of awareness could set the right direction for this set of

enterprise community.

Enterprise Resource Planning

SAP continues to own the highest user share in this segment, followed by

Oracle, and Microsoft Navision. Last year, Ramco had sufficient user share to be

considered in the analysis. This year, however, their user share is very low

amongst the audience we targeted, and therefore could not be considered for the

analysis. The new entrant in our survey this year is Microsoft Navision, which

has been very active in this area. Brand persuasion continues to be low in this

area. On a relative scale though, SAP has the highest brand persuasion, followed

by Oracle and MS Navision.

Both Oracle and SAP enjoy the same level of brand loyalty among their

respective customers. Oracle however needs to be a little concerned because 11%

of its existing customers said that they're likely to shift to other brands. 6%

of them said they're likely to move to SAP. On the other hand, SAP enjoys a high

degree of brand loyalty and minimal switch outs by its existing customers to

other brands. Navision has a lower brand loyalty than the other two and needs

some attention. While it has 13% customers who're likely to remain with the

brand, there's another 13% who said that they're likely to switch to SAP. The

remaining 75% of the customers were indecisive over which brand would they

switch out to. This could be an opportunity that MS could leverage.

SAP continues on its rampage in this segment with the highest brand momentum,

primarily due to its current mass. However, the interesting thing is that it has

enough speed to double its future user share.

Compared to that, Oracle is at a much lower brand momentum. While that's not

a threat to Oracle, it's nothing to write home about either.

At this pace, it's likely to increase its future user share by a few

percentage points. Microsoft Navision, despite being a new and active entrant

has a very low brand momentum relatively when we compare it with SAP. It needs

to pick up speed if it wants to gain users' share in this market.

Human Resource Management

Both SAP's MySAP ERP and Oracle's PeopleSoft division have nearly similar

brand persuasion, with a gap of only 1% (in favor of Oracle). The third most

persuasive brand also belongs to Oracle, and it's the E-Business Suite. SAP

enjoys the highest current user base in this segment, even after we combine both

of Oracle's brands. The overall brand persuasion in this segment is pretty low

as can be seen from the graph.

The overall brand loyalty figures are pretty low in this segment. Relatively,

Oracle's PeopleSoft enjoys the highest brand loyalty among its existing

customers, and there's a miniscule percentage of them wanting to shift to some

other brand. There's a large 67% of them who're not sure whether to switch out

or not. SAP's mySAP ERP is in a similar situation. Oracle's E-Business Suite has

17% existing customers that are likely to shift to other brands. Of course,

there's a large chunk of its customers that aren't sure. So like every other

segment, here also there are a large chunk of CIOs who aren't sure about which

brand to really shift to, if they were to do so.

Lastly, SAP enjoys the highest brand momentum, primarily due to its current

mass. That will help it increase its future user base by a significant amount,

if it continues moving at the same pace. Oracle's PeopleSoft is a speed driven

brand, and has second highest brand momentum. Here again, there are no real

worries, because the brand is likely to increase its future base. Oracle's

E-Business Suite has the lowest brand momentum, and is moving at a fairly slow

speed. It needs to increase its brand awareness and strengthen it if it wants to

increase its future base. At the current pace, it's likely to lose some of its

user base.

Last year, we found quite a few companies running their own in-house/custom

developed HR software. This year, we hardly found any. This could mean that the

HR management software vendors are very active in the market, converting

home-grown HR software into commercial solutions.

Messaging Solutions

Only two brands have sufficient responses worth analyzing in this segment and

neither of them is a surprise.Microsoft's Exchange enjoys the highest top of

mind recalls, followed by IBM's Lotus Notes/Domino platform. Linux based

messaging platforms are there, but their current user base, in this segment, is

far too low for us to do their analysis.

Against 34% CIOs who could recall Lotus as top of mind, only 12% said that

they're likely to purchase it in the near future as well. Nevertheless, this

still gives a better brand persuasion index relative to Microsoft Exchange. In

case of Exchange, 54% CIOs could recall it spontaneously, and only 16% out of

those said that they're likely to purchase it as well. Therefore, both brands

need to pump up their persuasiveness considerably. Perhaps the new versions of

both will do the trick, since both are talking about unified messaging features

being built in.

Brand loyalties are a concern for both brands, as they hover around 33% for

Exchange and only 35% for Domino. The good thing is that only a few CIOs said

that they're likely to switch to other brands, but the concern here are the

number of uncertain CIOs. 61% of Exchange's existing owners are not sure which

messaging platform would they shift to in the future. Likewise, a whopping 55%

of the CIOs using Domino said the same thing. So it's a concern, because the

pendulum could swing either way. Domino needs to worry more because 10% of its

existing customers said that they're likely to switch to another brand. Exchange

need not worry too much because the customers wanting to switch brand in its

case are only 6%.

Lastly, we come to the brand momentum. Exchange, of course, has a higher

brand momentum, largely due to its current mass. This will help it gain expected

user share in the future to 47% from the current 40%. Even notes is moving at a

decent pace, although it's only 68% of Exchange's pace. It' s also likely to

grow its user share to 32% from the current 26%.

Network Infrastructure Mgmt Solutions

HP OpenView and IBM Tivoli own the lion's share in this segment, with HP

having the highest current user base and IBM close on its heels. The other two

names in this segment are also fairly well known, Microsoft's SMS Server and

CA's Unicenter. The overall persuasiveness of brands in this category is pretty

low, i.e. each brand has a very high top of mind recall, but low likelihood of

purchasing. Relatively though, Microsoft's SMS Server is the most persuasive,

followed by CA Unicenter, HP OpenView and IBM's Tivoli.

SMS Server enjoys the highest brand loyalty among all brands from its

customers. However, 11% of its existing customers are likely to switch to

another well known brand, Novell's ManageWise. CA's Unicenter is close on the

heels of SMS Server in brand loyalty, and 7% of its existing customers said

they're likely to shift to HP OpenView. Interestingly, both OpenView and Tivoli

enjoy the same level of brand loyalty from their respective customers. However,

Tivoli seems to have a better grip over its existing enterprise customers than

OpenView. 11% of OpenView's existing customers said that they're likely to

switch to a different brand. In case of IBM Tivoli, the switch out was only for

4% of its existing customers. But then, there's a high number of existing

customers of both Tivoli and OpenView who are not sure about which brand to

switch to.

HP OpenView has the highest brand momentum, which is clearly due to its

current mass, meaning it's a mass driven brand. If it continues at the same

pace, it's likely to increase its future users share. IBM Tivoli has the next

highest brand momentum index, and is also a mass driven brand. At the current

speed, this brand is likely to grow at the same pace as HP OpenView. Both

Microsoft SMS Server and CA Unicenter are speed driven brands. Even though their

relative brand index is lower than Tivoli and OpenView, they're not under any

kind of threat of loosing user share. In fact, even if they continue at their

current respective paces, they're likely to gain user share.

Server and Network OS

This segment is largely dominated by different versions of Windows servers,

with Windows 2003 Server having the highest current ownership overall. RedHat is

the most dominant among all Linux brands, as far as cumulative ownership is

concerned.

While 6% CIOs recalled Linux as top of mind for a server OS, 4% said they're

likely to purchase it as well. So even though the cumulative ownership of Linux

OS is miniscule as compared to the top brand Windows, it has a relatively higher

brand persuasion. This is because against 54% CIOs who had Windows 2003 Server

on top of mind, 21% were most likely to buy it.

The brand movement is interesting in this segment. RedHat enjoys the highest

brand loyalty. 35% of its existing customers said that they're not likely to

switch. Only 19% of its existing customers plan to make a switch. Windows 2003

Server has the second highest brand loyalty, and the percentage of switch outs

by existing customers is also very low. There is however a huge 62% of the

population of existing Windows 2003 Server users who're not sure about which

brand to switch to. It's surprising to see that some people still refuse to let

go of Windows 2000 Server. 26% of the existing user base of Windows 2000 Server

still remains loyal to it, whereas a strong 48% want to switch out. The good

news for Microsoft is that a majority of them would be upgrading to Windows 2003

Server. There are a small percentage of owners of 'Other version of Windows',

which even include Windows NT. They seem to be a confused lot, and are

indecisive as to which brand to shift to.

The brand momentum figures are quite evident. Windows 2003 Server is clearly

a mass driven brand, and enjoys the highest brand momentum because of that.

RedHat Linux is the next mass driven brand, and if it wants to remain where it

is or grow its current user base by a few percent, then it doesn't have to do

anything. Windows 2003 Server doesn't have anything to worry about. Even if it

looses slightly from its current user base, it will gain from the user base of

other Windows versions.

High-End Servers

Four brands had a sufficient cumulative user-base to be considered for the

analysis here. IBM had the highest current ownership, followed by HP, Sun, and

Dell. However, none of these brands are persuasive enough, which can be clearly

seen from their distance from the diagonal line on the brand persuasion chart.

Relatively though, Dell has better brand persuasion than others, despite its

comparatively lower cumulative user-base. The next most persuasive brand is Sun,

followed by IBM, and then HP.

There's an interesting twist in the brand loyalty tale in this segment. There

aren't too many switch outs to other brands. For instance, only 4% of IBM's

existing customers said that they're likely to switch to HP in the future. 10%

of HP's existing customer base said they're likely to move to other brands, and

only 6% of Dell's and Sun's respective customers said that they're likely to

switch to other brands. The remaining customers in all brands aren't too sure of

which brand they're likely to switch to. This is possibly because high end

servers last for many years, and the decision to shift to a different brand

would not be so easy. Nevertheless, Dell enjoys the highest brand loyalty,

followed by IBM, Sun, and then HP.

Overall, there's no stopping for IBM, as it has the highest brand momentum,

primarily due to its current mass. Even if it continues doing what it's been

doing in generating mind share, it's going to increase its existing user share

by more than 10%. HP, of course, has the next highest brand momentum, again due

to its current mass. It can easily sail through without doing much, and continue

enjoying the same 28% user share. But a little bit of additional effort could

see that number improve. Dell and Sun follow the pack, and are also doing fairly

well. Even at their current pace, they could increase their user share by 6 and

2% respectively.

Next year should be very interesting, because the x86 based multi-core

servers would be thriving by then. Let's see if they push the big irons further

up the niche.

LCD Monitors

Last year, we'd included LCD monitors in our consumer brands survey. This

time we decided to find out the enterprise side of the story. The results we got

were quite interesting. You might have noticed that more PC/laptop brands are

visible in our list than pure LCD monitor brands. This is not surprising,

because most pure LCD monitor vendors are also OEM partners for PC brands.

Therefore, a growth in PC market directly affects the LCD monitor market.

Only about half of the decision makers could decisively mention the brand

they are most likely to buy in the near future. This makes most of the brands

less persuasive. Relatively (irrespective of the absolute numbers) Dell has the

highest brand persuasion even though its cumulative ownership share a fifth of

the top brand HP-Compaq's cumulative ownership. IBM, HP-Compaq, LG, and Samsung

follow in that order.

Dell has the best loyalty & least (zero) switch to others brands, none of its

existing customers are likely to switch to another brand. The brand loyalty for

others hovered between 24% to 38%, and likely brand shifts ranged from 12% to

27%; making most of them losing brand pull. Though we have not considered the

indecisive percentage of CIOs-the joker in the pack, who are not too sure about

which brand to shift to. It could swing the brand loyalty, as well as, switch-in

& switch-out either way for each brand.

HP-Compaq is clearly ahead of the pack with highest brand momentum, primarily

due to its current mass. Even if it continues to do what it has been doing in

generating mind share, it will not lose its existing user share. In fact, its

future user share will remain the same. Samsung has the next highest brand

momentum, but if it doesn't speed up a little, its user share could be slightly

affected. Dell has the fastest momentum of all brands, and if it continues at

this pace, then it's existing user share is more likely to double. Likewise for

IBM, but the gain would be lesser. LG can remain at the same position without

doing any additional effort.

Large Volume Storage

Three names stand out with enough cumulative user base for us to analyze.

These are HP, IBM, and EMC. Other key brands, like Dell, Sun, Hitachi, and

Veritas (now, Symantec) are also there, but their sample bases are much lower.

HP enjoys the highest brand recall in large volume storage, followed by IBM and

EMC. Others, including Dell, are well below the top three.

Brand recall alone is not sufficient. The brand has to be persuasive enough

for somebody to buy it. Unfortunately, the overall brand persuasion in large

volume storage is low. For instance, 40% of the respondents could spontaneously

recall HP, but only 13% said that they're likely to purchase the same brand in

the next 3 months. Likewise, 25% of the CIOs could recall IB