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By Julie
Bort
Network World,
12/24/01
After one of the roughest years ever, Cisco CEO John Chambers
gets the vote as the most powerful vendor executive in the industry from the
250 readers who participated in our annual 2001 Powerometer survey, but only
by a thread. Microsoft's CEO lagged Chambers by a mere 1/2 point.
More telling, Steve Ballmer's score increased over last
year's by five points, to 72.5, while Chambers' rank dropped five points to
73. And 30% of respondents believe that Chambers' power will remain the same
in the coming year while only 26% see it increasing. Likewise, 34% see Ballmer's
influence at a standstill for 2002 while 27% believe it will grow.
But even if the balance of power between these two remains
the same, Chambers will probably never again nearly single-handedly control
the network industry. Participants view Dell CEO Michael Dell and Oracle CEO
Larry Ellison as more likely than Chambers to increase their influence in
2002. Thirty percent of respondents say Dell will grab power in 2002, perhaps
because he seems determined to attack networking, via storage products and
low-cost switches, in the same fashion as PCs. Twenty-nine percent believe
Ellison's influence will rise in 2002. This even though e-commerce and application
service providers are not the boom markets Oracle banked on. Still, respondents
are paying homage to Ellison's uncanny ability to grab the spotlight - most
recently by squawking that the U.S. should create a national standard for
identification cards, via Oracle software of course. Interestingly, neither
Dell nor Ellison nudged up this year from their 2000 Powerometer slots of
5 and 6.
Not so for IBM CEO Lou Gerstner - his score rose 9%, boosting
him to the No. 4 spot, despite the fact that he may hand the CEO slot over
to company president Sam Palmisano as early as 2002 (see story, page 40).
But readers laud IBM's Web products and support for Linux, and that reflects
well on Gerstner.
The surprise of the survey was a whopping 38% increase
in influence by Alcatel CEO Serge Tchuruk. Last year, his first on this list,
respondents replied, "Who?" and granted him a 38.7 Power Rating,
one of the lowest scores in the survey's six-year history. In 2001, his 53.2
score tied him at 22 with BellSouth CEO Duane Ackerman. This is good news
for Ackerman, too. A 53.2 is a 15%, and one rank, raise over last year, largely
on his highly visible attempts to glean entry into long-distance.
Heads of other incumbent local exchange carriers fared
even better. Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg's rank jumped 14% and six spots
to No. 11; Qwest Communications CEO Joe Nacchio's increased 15% and six spots
to No. 12. However hard hit the telecom industry is, user need for bandwidth
has yet to subside - and charisma counts, too.
But telecom equipment makers swan-dived. Former Nortel
CEO John Roth dropped 11% and eight spots. He was still in the corner office
during this survey, but had announced in April that he would retire, retaining
a board position through 2002. And his 2001 performance was abysmal. Under
his leadership, Nortel's share in the crucial optical equipment sector dropped
from 47% to 17% between the fourth quarter of 2000 and the second quarter
of 2001, the Dell'Oro Group says. That, in part, attributed to massive employee
layoffs and business unit sell-offs that slashed Nortel's 95,000-strong workforce
by about half.
In more stories of succession, Lucent CEO Henry Schacht
landed last, with a score of 46.7, compared with the 11th spot his predecessor,
Richard McGinn, held in 2000. (Granted, McGinn earned that rank weeks before
his hasty departure in wake of the company's tumbling fortunes.) Respondents
have taken a wait-and-see attitude on Novell's new CEO, Jack Messman, allotting
him the rank of 24 on a score of 50.2. They hold more hope for EMC CEO Joe
Tucci, who made his Powerometer premier at the creditable half-way mark, No.
13.
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