Dell Ranks Top in PC Servers in Survey on Corporate User Satisfaction
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'nuff said don't you think?
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(Source:AsiaBizTech-excerpts only)
January 11, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Dell Computer Corp. of Japan ranks top in Nikkei Computer's annual survey on corporate customer satisfaction among major users of computers.
A remarkable shift is seen in the top places of the PC server category and the UNIX server category as compared with last year's survey results.
Dell Computer Corp. of Japan earned first place in the PC server category, even though the company entered the Japanese PC server market just a year ago. (See table.) Dell Computer is notable for its hardware pricing strategy.
Nihon Sun Microsystems K.K. succeeded in taking the No. 1 ranking in the UNIX server category. Although its support work has been poorly rated, Nihon Sun's products have a reputation for excellence.
Nikkei Computer conducts the survey each year (See Survey Methods.), targeting midsize and large businesses to ascertain user satisfaction. In the recent survey (the fourth such survey), questionnaires were sent to information system divisions of 7,786 companies, with effective answers received from 1,903 companies.
The questionnaires specify "comprehensive satisfaction" and "satisfaction by each item." The former is for evaluating products and services, and the latter is for judging the degree of satisfaction with performance and prices, independent of the evaluation of comprehensive satisfaction.
The survey covers the three fields of hardware, software and application services. However, Asia BizTech will focus on the hardware results.
PC Servers: Dell Earns Top Place in its First Entry
Although it had relatively few survey respondents (just 68), Dell Computer achieved the highest score of 66 points, for "comprehensive satisfaction" in the PC server sector.
Following Dell Computer, other computer makers are in a head-to-head competition for "comprehensive satisfaction." Nihon Unisys Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd. shared the second place (with 64 points).
Next, comes NEC Corp. and Compaq Computer K.K. in fourth place (with 63 points). IBM Japan Ltd. ranked sixth, and Fujitsu Ltd. ranked seventh.
Thus, three companies with lower market shares are in the upper ranks, while four enterprises with larger market shares are in the lower rankings.
As for "satisfaction by each item," Dell Computer and Nihon Unisys were appraised highly. Dell Computer is seen as leading others in terms of hardware prices.
Dell Computer got its top marks based on a high score of satisfaction (75 points), or 21 points higher than the average satisfaction level.
According to the analysis done by Nikkei Computer, the "Dell Model" has contributed to increasing satisfaction levels among users in terms of price. The Dell Model aims at reducing inventory and distribution costs by producing on orders and taking a direct sales approach.
The second place in the ranking of hardware price satisfaction is occupied by Compaq Computer, with a score of 62 points. Compaq made the best use of its advantage as the top-ranking corporation in market share in the global market (source: IDC survey in 1998). IBM Japan was the only maker with a score below 50 points. The remaining four companies had average scores.
Nihon Unisys and Hitachi gained remarkably high marks in satisfaction with product-related services, such as responses to inquiries when trouble occurs.
According to Nikkei Computer's analysis, the most important factor that contributed to the high satisfaction rate is that all users of Nihon Unisys and Hitachi computers are provided with services directly by vendors offering services for mainframes. By contrast, Dell has a low mark in this area.
In terms of "comprehensive satisfaction" of PC servers by type of operating system, the highest points were gained by machines using the Intel version of UNIX. Although the number of responses with this type of UNIX machine was not large (at 104), the degree of satisfaction expressed (64 points) is a point higher than that of the No. 2 ranked machine running Windows NT (the number of responses for which was 1,714).
In the survey, no questions were asked on product names of the Intel version of UNIX. However, it seems reasonable to assume that many of the responses should refer to free UNIX such as Linux and FreeBSD, because there have been few deliveries of Intel versions of UNIX for commercial use in Japan.
UNIX Servers: Nihon Sun Makes a Strong Comeback
As for "comprehensive satisfaction" of UNIX servers, Nihon Sun made a comeback to the top position (with 65 points) after an interval of two years.
Ranking second are IBM Japan and Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd. (HP Japan) both with a score of 64 points. HP Japan advanced greatly from last year's ranking by gaining 10 points in a single year.
Fujitsu ranks fourth with 63 points, and Hitachi ranks fifth, with 62 points. Hitachi had earned the top position last year. Next, Digital Equipment Corp. Japan (DEC Japan) and Nihon Unisys gained scores of 61 points.
And, following them, NEC ranks eighth (with 59 points). NCR Japan Ltd. is in the lowest rank with 49 points.
As for the evaluation of "satisfaction by each item," there are no significant gaps among target enterprises, except for NCR Japan.
Nihon Sun should be noted for its high scores in various items concerning products. Nihon Sun ranks top in the following four items: hardware price, operating system price, productivity of application development, and variety of software product lines.
Also, HP Japan scored high points, and the company's popularity gained ground since last year. This was on the basis of HP Japan's public notification of the PA-RISC development road map as well as its business plan to enhance the availability factor of UNIX servers to the level of mainframes (or 99.999 percent by 2000).
On the other hand, NCR Japan is working hard to enhance its customer satisfaction. NCR Japan has provided a remote maintenance service, called Customer Care Link, since the spring of 1998.
As for the evaluation of product-related services, Hitachi got high marks. The company won high marks for its support on introducing products and changing types of machine or operating systems as well as responses to problems. By contrast, in terms of quality of service, Nihon Sun got fairly low points. ............
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