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When we set out to discover what network products and services you like best, we weren't necessarily expecting any big surprises. Perhaps that's why some of the results, notably your loyalty to IBM, shocked us. Big Blue products came out on top in four of the 10 product categories. We examined the results by a few criteria. First is pure usage, meaning the percentage of respondents saying they use a product or products. Then we looked at the percentage of respondents who voted a product as best in its category. Here users could choose only one product. Finally, we examined each product's rating according to the Dominance Index, a statistical measure created by STAT Resources, a Chestnut Hill, Mass., research firm that conducted the survey for us. The Dominance Index is intended to show the level of customer loyalty. For example, if 100 respondents say they use product X, it stands to reason that most of them will choose it as the best product in its category. If all 100 do indeed choose product X, Dominance equals the expected 1.0; it means preference for the product is right in line with usage level. If only 40 of the 100 choose product X, Dominance is 0.4 - that's not good; it means 60% of the product's user base likes another product better. And if more than 100 respondents say they like product X best, Dominance would be above 1.0, which is very good. Such an index means respondents who use more than one of a given type of product are voting for product X more often than is to be expected, or the product is attracting "Best" votes from outside its user base.Spotlight on IBMIBM begins its strong showing in the PC server category. While Compaq ProLiant came out ahead in terms of usage and the Best vote (barely), IBM Netfinity takes Dominance. Among the 128 respondents who voted for a Best server, Compaq's lead is a slim 2% over IBM, 35% to 33%, which is statistically insignificant. But IBM's 1.4 Dominance is significantly higher than Compaq's 1.1. Compaq's loss is greater among larger users - more than 5,000 client machines - with a Dominance Index of 0.8 to IBM's 1.3. Hewlett-Packard and Dell lose out in Dominance, with overall indexes of 0.8 and 0.7, respectively - a statistically significant difference from Compaq and IBM. Compaq does well in smaller shops, however. It ties with IBM for the top in Dominance at 1.4. HP is next at 0.9; Dell is at 0.5. It's a similar story with Web servers. Among 150 respondents, Apache Group's Apache Server took the crown for most widely used server with 41%, compared to 34% for Microsoft Site Server 3.0 and 30% for IBM WebSphere Application Server 2.02, Enterprise Edition. IBM Lotus Domino Release 5 and Netscape Netra I 3.2.1 each had 23%. But IBM's WebSphere beats Apache 32% to 27% among the 121 users who voted for one server as Best and blows it away in Dominance with a whopping 1.8 to Apache's 1.1. Netscape Netra I 3.2.1 was third in Best voting at 14% and in Dominance at a status quo 1.0. Site Server and Domino R5 have problems, with Dominance indexes of 0.6 and 0.5, respectively. On the other hand, these versions are fairly new so it could be that users are still climbing the learning curve. IBM likewise rocks the e-commerce platform category with an impressive 59% of respondents using its Net.Commerce3 product, more than twice as many as nearest competitor Microsoft, with 28% for Site Server Commerce Edition. Netscape's CommerceXpert Suite was third at 16%; no other contender garnered more than 6%. We should note that only 69 of the nearly 200 respondents gave answers in this category, the second-lowest response rate in the survey next to virtual private network (VPN) gateways. That's a sign of an immature market. IBM also cleans up in the Best scores, chosen by 64% as their favorite, better than three times Microsoft at 18%. IBM's Dominance is greater yet - a solid 1.3 to 0.8 for Microsoft and Netscape. IBM even further dominated the large-user category, with 73% of the usage, 80% of the Best votes and 1.4 Dominance, in contrast to 0.5 for Microsoft and 0.7 for Netscape. The enterprise management system category made for another interesting race, with HP OpenView taking top honors for usage, named by 50% of the 131 respondents, followed not so closely by Tivoli Global Enterprise Manager at 31%. As for Best scores and Dominance, it's once again IBM on top, with its Tivoli product coming in with 46% of the 94 Best votes and a 1.6 Dominance Index. Cabletron Spectrum was next in Dominance at 1.4, with 17% of the Best votes, while Computer Associates Unicenter mustered a 0.9 Dominance Index but only 4% of Best votes. HP was second in Best scoring with 21%, but poorest of the four in Dominance with only 0.8; that's not terrible on its own, but it is a 0.8 difference from top dog Tivoli. Tivoli comes on top in Dominance among large and small organizations, but its rating among larger firms is perhaps most telling. HP and IBM Tivoli are in a virtual tie on usage at 47% and 46%, respectively, but Tivoli cleans up on Dominance with a 1.5 to HP's 0.7. Cabletron ran a close third at 1.4, and CA was far behind the leader at 0.6. The final category in which IBM had a stellar showing was storage-area networks. IBM's Enterprise Storage Server garnered 51% of the usage vote to 20% for its closest competitor, Compaq's Enterprise Storage Array 12000 Fibre Channel. HP's SureStore E Disk Array XP 256 was third at 18%. Sun's StorEdge A7000 was fourth at 16%, while Data General and StorageTek products tied at 14%. But IBM holds up in the Dominance Index with a top-notch 1.3, compared to 1.1 for Compaq, 0.9 for Sun, 0.8 for StorageTek and 0.6 for HP and Data General. Best scores are likewise in IBM's favor, as it gathered 51% of the 63 Best votes to 20% or less for all the other contenders.Beyond IBMThe differential between Window NT's usage score and Best product statistics in the operating system category is probably the most dramatic single finding in our Best Products survey. Of the 191 respondents for the operating system category, 80% say they use Windows NT Server 4.0, twice as many as second-place NetWare 5. IBM AIX 4.3 came in third at 33%, followed by Sunsoft Solaris 7 at 29% and HP-UX 11 at 17%. All others were used by less than 10% of respondents. But in terms of which operating systems respondents like best, it's NetWare, with 25% of the respondents choosing it. NT trailed slightly with a 23% Best vote; AIX followed with 17% and Solaris with 12%. Looking at Dominance, Novell outscores NT by a statistically wider margin, 1.5 to 0.7. AIX was second in Dominance at 1.2 and Solaris third at 1.0. As might be expected, Check Point Software stands high atop the firewall hill. Check Point's Firewall-1 garnered a usage score of 43% from the 113 respondents, more than double any other competitor; Axent's Raptor was second at 19%, Network Associates' Gauntlet Firewall got 16%, Secure Computing Sidewinder Security Server landed 12% and all others were less than 10%. Check Point soundly beat its competitors in terms of usage at small (39%) and large (49%) user levels. Check Point's lead held up in the Best scoring (35%) and in its 1.0 Dominance, not quite as good as Axent's 1.2. Axent came in second in Best scoring at 20% of the 79 votes cast, followed by Network Associates at 10%; all the others were in single digits. Most of the Dominance Indexes in the firewall category are in the 0.9 to 1.2 range. That reflects the fact that most users employ only one vendor's firewall and vote for it as Best. Network Associates is the lone exception. With a Dominance Index of just 0.7, it may have to be concerned about customer loyalty. For the most part, users are satisfied with their chosen vendors in the VPN gateway category. It's also a sign of a relatively immature technology, one in which users don't have a lot of experience with different products and thus can't draw comparisons among them. The respondent base is further evidence: Only 56 respondents cast a usage vote and only 44 of them voted for a Best product. In the VPN case, it's a two-horse show. Intel's LanRover VPN Gateway comes out on top in usage at 38%, while Nortel Networks Contivity Extranet Switch is next at 30%. Nortel comes out on top in large enterprises in usage at 42% (vs. 29% for Intel), but Intel is big with smaller shops - 45% usage to Nortel's 19%. No other vendor garnered more than 5% total usage. Best voting mapped fairly closely to usage, with 36% selecting Intel and 23% choosing Nortel. Likewise, both landed respectable Dominance Indexes with Intel at 1.1 and Nortel at 0.9.AT&T (IBM) victoryFrom the findings in the Internet access category, it's easy to see why AT&T wanted to buy the IBM Global Network. The former IBM network, now called the AT&T Global Network, came in first in usage with 32% of 147 respondents on the net. MCI WorldCom's UUNET came in second with 31%, Sprint third with 17% and AT&T IP Services fourth with 11%. No other carrier landed more than 10%, although 40% of respondents selected "Other," an indication of the vast number of players in this market. Lots of companies also use more than one Internet access provider, an average of nearly 1.5 per respondent. It's the Best scores and Dominance that really make the former IBM network shine. The service came in first in terms of Best voting at 43% and had the highest Dominance Index, an outstanding 1.5. AT&T's own IP Services, on the other hand, scrounged only 2% of the 91 Best votes cast and had a rather poor Dominance Index of 0.5, meaning roughly half its users like another service better. UUNET finished second in Best voting at 24%, with a solid 1.2 Dominance, while Sprint managed 14% of Best votes and has a few disloyal users, as its 0.8 Dominance indicates. In the final category, Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet switches, it was Cisco's turn to shine, at least in terms of usage and Best voting. A full 70% of respondents said they use Cisco's Catalyst 5500, far outdistancing the Cabletron SmartSwitch Router 8600 and 3Com's CoreBuilder 9000, which came in at 19% and 18%, respectively. No other vendor got more than a 10% share. Cisco likewise cleans up in the Best voting with 58% of the total to Cabletron's 21%. All other vendors were in single digits, meaning 3Com suffered a big loss in loyalty. That was also reflected in 3Com's Dominance Index of 0.6 overall and a worrisome 0.3 in large shops. Cabletron topped the Dominance chart with its 1.4, while Cisco turned in a respectable 1.1. Related linksA former Network World editor, Desmond is vice president of King Content, an editorial services company in Southborough, Mass. He can be reached at paul_desmond@king-content.com. Complete results
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