In our annual survey, readers rate no vendor more powerful this year than last. But they remain optimistic that new technologies will help the industry regain its former luster.
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Realism needn’t exclude optimism, even in a tough economy when these concepts seem to occupy separate quadrants of the philosophical plane. True, the network industry still is nursing a hangover from the optimism binged on during the Internet bubble. Network executives (who always have been realists) know the cure: new technology.
While a company can’t ignore its financial performance, they say, honest-to-goodness new technology is more important to improving power in the eyes of the IT customer than encouraging short-term financial reports.
That’s the message gleaned from this year’s Powerometer survey of 250 Network World readers. Specifically, nearly half the participants agree – 14% strongly – with the statement that the network industry is more powerful than other industries (such as energy, accounting and financial services) also battered in this downturn. Likewise, half say a company’s ability to produce great new technology is a more important power consideration than is the ability to meet quarterly financial projections.
Respondents nevertheless issued a “power correction” in this year’s survey. Using a scale of 1 to 100, readers rated a company’s power, with 100 being the most powerful. Comparing this year’s means – the Power Ratings – with 2001’s reveals that readers don’t consider a single company, mighty Microsoft and Cisco included, as more powerful this year than last. In fact, the Power Rating for all companies dipped to a five-year low.
Neither do readers see vendors using this economic slowdown to usurp power from each other. The top 10 companies remain in nearly identical rankings as they stood in 2001, with 3Com being an anomaly. 3Com jumped from No. 13 to No. 10, reaching top-10 status for the first time since 1999. But this is less a credit to 3Com than a result of large power penalties placed on troubled vendors, such as those in the anemic telecom sector and those with scandalous financial problems. Last year, EMC rated No. 11, ahead of 3Com, but thanks to almost two years of operating losses, a sagging stock price and probes into its accounting practices, readers docked EMC’s Power Rating by about 10%.
Yet, readers named EMC the storage vendor most likely to increase power in 2003. This is thanks to its growing partnership with Dell and the boosting of its executive payroll with some former big rivals. Likewise, readers are similarly optimistic over the chances for AT&T, Dell and Verizon to increase power over their competitors in the next 12 months (see story, “The 10 most powerful companies in networking” ).
In its entirety, the survey reveals that network executives still believe in technology’s power to change the world – just as it always has. But, they know these disruptive technologies take hard work, not imaginative accounting.
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