Overall: IBM Global Services
Usability & Effectiveness: IBM Global Services
Content, Features & Capabilities: Accenture.com
The ripples of IBM.com’s latest site redesign reached the professional services segment this year and has rocked Accenture.com’s first place ranking. The question now is whether or not the tide will turn in 2012. Here’s the rundown from first place to last: Read More→
Overall: Symantec.com
Usability & Effectiveness: Symantec.com
Content, Features & Capabilities: Microsoft.com
Each business software site’s redesign over the past year has caused content and features to shrink on a huge scale. But did these diets help the sites’ usability scores? At least one Website should think so. Here’s the rundown from first place to last: Read More→
Overall: Cisco.com
Usability & Effectiveness: Cisco.com
Content, Features & Capabilities: Cisco.com
Site refreshes, redesigns, and company acquisitions. All were in play in the networking systems segment last year. Did these facelifts improve these site’s usability? Did HP’s acquisition of 3Com give the old ProCurve site a new lease on life? Here’s the rundown from first place to last: Read More→
Overall: Oracle.com
Usability & Effectiveness: IBM Software Group
Content, Features & Capabilities: Oracle.com
With two companies performing complete site overhauls–and one nudging its site into place over the past year—rankings were bound to change in 2011. So which sites were the major movers and shakers over the past 12 months? Which ones are the sites to watch through 2012? Here’s the rundown from first place to last: Read More→
Overall: IBM.com
Usability: IBM.com
Content, Features & Capabilities: HP.com
But the siteIQ eBusiness Index is always about more than just rankings, ratings, and numbers. So what’s the story about what happened over the past 12 months? Here’s the rundown from first place to last: Read More→
A circa 2008 site that missed the memos on Web 2.0, 3.0 and social mediaI was surprised at the IBM Software Group zone’s performance in our latest siteIQ evaluations. Once upon a time, this site ranked first among all enterprise software comers by virtue of its huge portfolio of content & features, and competitive usability scores.
Fade out two years later and the story is much different. This site dropped to third among the 5 enterprise software sites we study and stands in 11th place on the siteIQ eBusiness Index. (You can download a free IBM Software Group scoring summary here).
Today, CA.com and Oracle.com are the sites to watch. Between the two, I vote for CA.com. Read More→
Oracle.com + Sun.com = less than the sum of their partsOracle.com has been the big Kahuna in the enterprise software industry for the past couple of years when it finally slipped past IBM’s Software Group site, which has been stuck in idle since early 2008. Then it decided to change the rules of its own game.
In 2009 Oracle bought Sun Microsystems in a quest to graduate into the business of selling hardware, software & services to the enterprise business set. Along with its red, white and black cap and gown, Oracle now gets to compete with the likes of IBM, HP and Dell. The question is, of course, how well does the combined Oracle.com & Sun.com sites perform against competitors that have been marketing & selling complex products online for well over a decade?
The answer is: not very well.
In case you missed my last posts, this is the time when we announce our eBusiness Index rankings. Here’s a bird’s eye view of the Websites that set the standards in the IT industry.
Related research: The eBusiness Index Report. If you are a siteIQ client or subscriber, click here.
There are plenty of hits and misses on this year’s roster. My favorites are . . .In my last post, I shared some info about the top five Websites on the siteIQ eBusiness Index. Here’s my interesting surprises and “oops” list:
Symantec.com’s usability ranks second, and the site misses a “Good Practice” rating by a hair.
Juniper.net and Oracle.com complete the usability top five. Of the two, Juniper.net is most likely to move up a slot and knock CA.com off its perch.
Intel.com aced the online recruiting category and is the only four star (the best) in this category. (OK, so most recruiting zones are a big snooze – but we have to give Intel.com chops for its four star performance).
Services marketing continues to be Nortel.com’s claim to fame; HP.com and IBM.com are still second tier contenders.
Juniper.net hits the high note in the communities category – but Cisco.com and Intel.com also operate four star (the best) communities. (This is another way of saying that the new guys are zipping past community pioneers).
If call to action is your bag, look no further than Cisco.com. It is the only call to action “Best Practice” site on the eBusiness Index.
Newegg.com’s e-commerce capabilities puts it with the big boys: Dell.com & HP.com. Newegg ranks third with four stars (the best) and a “Good Practice” nod.
A couple of new entrants on the 2010 eBusiness Index roster did better than expected.
Related research: The eBusiness Index Report. If you are a siteIQ client or subscriber, click here.
In 2010 we changed the rules of the game . . and interesting things happenedWe’ve been evaluating and tracking leading IT Websites for about 15 years. Along the way, our best practices benchmarks have been updated every year to identify and track emerging Website requirements.
Once upon a time our benchmarks weighed in at about 700 criteria. Then Web 2.0, Web 3.0, communities, and social media sparked a Website revolution.
Click on the graph to view full size
This revolution triggered a wholesale audit of the siteIQ Benchmarks in January 2010 – resulting in a new siteIQ Benchmark that weighs in at a whopping 1,232 criteria. In simple terms, that’s 1,232 types of content, features & capabilities that need to be on your “got it” checklist – or on your 2010 drawing board.
Needless to say, when you change the rules of the game, interesting things happen.
Related research: The eBusiness Index Report. If you are a siteIQ client or subscriber, click here.
