Among enterprise entrants, Spectra Logic Corp. coasted to an easy win with an overall sales competence rating of 6.53, well ahead of runner-up Sun's 6.17. Spectra Logic's domination of this category was even more impressive than Sun's midrange win, with the highest scores for every statement. Spectra's highest statement score was a 6.83 for "My sales rep is easy to negotiate with."

[IMAGE]

Click here to view a PDF of the midrange tape libraries rankings.

Initial product quality

Having negotiated the sales process, the next litmus test for a tape library is initial product quality -- notably, how quickly it was installed and running, and the helpfulness of the professional services the vendor provided. For enterprise tape libraries, Spectra Logic repeated its sales-force c...

BROWSE BY TAG Features,   Data Backup,   Tape backup and libraries,   Storage Strategy,   Storage market research reports,   Storage vendors,   VIEW ALL TAGS

However, Sun turned the tables in the midrange library category with top scores for five statements (tying Sony for one of them); HP's 6.54 for "This product was easy to install" barely nudged Sun's score (6.50) to prevent the latter from sweeping this category. Sun also received one of only two 7.00 ratings in the entire survey for the statement "This product delivers good value for the money," which is something of a bellwether in the Quality Award surveys in helping to determine winning vendors.

Denny's Hazel is sold on the value of the company's IBM library. "It was half the cost of the previous solution, so we increased our productivity and reduced our costs, which is an amazing thing."

Among midrange library vendors, after Sun, the field was closely bunched. Sony was second with a 6.57, but the remaining six vendors were all within 0.30 points of Sony's score.

< PREV PAGE   |   1  |   2  |   3  |   4  |   5  |   6  |   NEXT PAGE  >