I don’t talk about Oracle.com much. In fact, I speak about them so little that one would be lead to believe that I hold a grudge against them. Sure, they unceremoniously erased one of the best enterprise systems sites from the Internet–Sun.com. But, I won’t hold that against them. No, I don’t write about them much for one reason:

My Mother taught me if you don’t have something nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.

There’s a litany of issues I have with Oracle.com ranging from design to innovation (or rather a lack thereof). But today, my rant is about Oracle.com’s content.

With communities and social networking becoming a requirement for IT Websites, product and service marketing content is becoming more focused on visitors’ needs. The prose tells them how the company’s products and services will solve their problems and help achieve their business goals. Some connect their technologies and benefits with real-world scenarios that visitors relate to. The best of the best even make it downright engaging to read.

The new message: “It’s all about you.”

Let’s compare this content approach to that on Oracle.com. A review of over twenty hardware and software product pages showed that Oracle’s name is mentioned a whopping 5 times more often than the words “you” or “yours” on a single page*. On some that number increased to over 10 to one. Combine that with page layouts that always begin with essays about “Why Oracle” and articles about its industry leadership, and you only get one message:

“It’s all about Oracle.”

But Oracle is not alone

HP.com also suffers from the “all about me” disease. HP.com’s ratios almost perfectly mirror Oracle.com’s. Product page content often mention HP five times more often than “you”. This increases to 10 to 1 on pages that provide lists of links to its products or related documents. HP.com does have one saving grace. Its page layouts mix up the content so it’s less obvious that HP is tooting its own horn.

The Bottom Line

The fact is people buy products because they have a problem that needs solved—not because the company is (or thinks it is) fabulous. Tout the product. Relate it to visitors’ needs. If they can understand this and it solves their problem, they will buy it.

What to avoid:

• Sentences that begin with the company name: if there is more than one, there is too many
• Listing the company name before actual product names: if visitors are on the company site, they know what company made the product.
• Topics that only speak about the company: this includes “Why [insert company name]?” content that runs more than 3 sentences.

How do the other enterprise systems sites fare?

IBM.com (software and hardware products) | The ratio of the usage of “IBM” to “you” or “yours” was a surprising 1:1 on many IBM Software page. In fact, on some pages the word “you” was used twice as much as “IBM”. IBM.com’s hardware product content does not fare quite as well with a ratio of 3 to 1.

Intel.com Business | The Intel.com site did not fare quite as well as IBM.com. On average Intel’s name was mentioned 3 times more often than the word “you”.

*Navigation panels were not included. Product names and links located in the body of the page were.

Oracle.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.

Oracle.com sets the pace in the software industry

In fact, Oracle.com’s graduation into the enterprise systems set means that it gets to start at the back of the pack. When these tough cookies are the issue, Oracle.com’s only claim to fame comes in the corporate marketing categories (big surprise). Meanwhile, HP.com, IBM.com & Dell.com beat Oracle.com’s product, services and industry marketing hands down. All three blow Oracle.com’s ecommerce off the map.

But now it gets to start at the back of the pack

While these results are likely to set off celebrations in some quarters, there’s a more sobering story here. Oracle.com inherited Sun.com, one of the most usable & effective sites in the IT industry. Rather than working this site’s good and best practices into its own landscape (and learning some invaluable lessons along the way), Oracle.com simply threw out the baby with the bathwater.

The net result is that Oracle.com + Sun.com has ended up to be much less than the sum of their parts – and that’s why Oracle.com gets to start at the back of the pack.

Related Reports: Website Rankings & Ratings: Enterprise Systems Websites, siteIQ Review: Oracle.com.

We’ve mixed up the siteIQ eBusiness Index for 2010. In some cases the decision was based on eliminating Websites that haven’t improved over the past year and don’t provide any good or best practices worth tracking. In other cases, sites have fallen off our list because they don’t exist anymore. That would be EDS.com which was integrated into HP.com — and Sun.com which went off the airwaves last week.

In both cases, these sites are a loss to anyone who cares about good and great practices. Don’t bother to follow them to their new homes. Their presence inside of their new parent’s sites is nothing to write home about.

Here’s some more about the new sites added to our roster – and why we’re singing “auld lang syne” to others. (If you are a siteIQ client you can read more about what we expect from these and other leading sites in 2010 in our new executive brief in the siteIntelligence Research Center).

IBM Software Group (zone): We’ve been evaluating and tracking IBM.com’s software zone for years as part of our custom client programs. This year it’s time for this zone to move onto the eBusiness roster. It should be interesting to see how this aging and oft cluttered design fares against competitors who are adopting new, highly efficient designs and Web 2.0 features that play directly to the B2B buying process. Don’t even get me started about communities — which are a blooming mess (tag: enterprise software)

SAS: We decided to replace Microsoft’s Dynamics zone with SAS.com this year for a simple reason. We’ve been tracking Microsoft’s enterprise software zone for years under the assumption that it would eventually figure out how to sell to large enterprises and step up to equal footing with the big boys. That never happened. This zone has been a step-child on this site from the get-go and it’s essentially invisible today. This year we decided to take off our miner’s helmets and replace this zone with SAS.com.

The case for SAS.com comes more from its industry presence than its Website footprint. It’s a perfectly mediocre site that seems to have missed the memos on Web 2.0 and social media marketing behaviors. If nothing else, it should be interesting to see how it stacks up against the other big boys in the enterprise software industry. If you are looking for a new leader though, I wouldn’t hold my breath. (tag: enterprise software)

EMC.com: EMC.com is new to our roster in 2010 and we’ve put it in the enterprise systems category. It’s a bit of an odd fit, but we think this is the segment that best matches its strategy and focus. Needless to say, EMC.com has come a long way over the past few years and it’s another example of a site that is maximizing Web 2.0 elements and creating standards for high impact designs. From a first blush perspective, it’s a small but mighty site in the spirit of Adobe.com.  It will be interesting to see where the site excels – and where it misses the mark in 2010. (tag: enterprise systems)

Sun.com: Last week, Sun.com went off the airwaves and was stuffed into a few pages on the Oracle.com site. Thus, ends the life of one of the IT industry’s most innovative and useful Websites.

To see why, let’s look at just a few of Sun.com’s industry “firsts.” It pioneered communities on the Web; embraced Web 2.0 when it was just a spec on the horizon; was the first to deploy tab top designs to consolidate content into manageable bites; automatically discounted prices in its (public) ecommerce system based on the customer’s contractual relationship; pioneered dashboards that allowed customers to customize information to their needs: operated the industry’s largest (java.com) and most diverse range of developer portals; and designed the industry’s first contextual search engine that organized results by objective, type, or role. Oh, and one thing else. It did all of this while ranking #1 in usability over the past 6 years.

All in all, a stellar run for the record book. It’s too bad that the company’s business strategy (and the CXOs that ran it) weren’t as effective as this site.

Intel.com: Intel.com is one of the industry’s most interesting studies because it marches to the tune of a truly unique drummer. Instead of marketing Intel’s products and services with sales as the end game, this site is focused on conditioning markets to prefer (and preferably demand) products built on Intel technologies — and then reward companies that sell Intel-based products by driving buyers directly to their Websites or retail stores. In simple terms, Intel.com isn’t chartered to sell Intel’s chips; it’s responsible for making sure that Intel is the buyers’ preferred brand.

From this perspective, Intel.com has always been one of few pure play ‘brand’ Websites. It’s also one of the first sites to effectively harness communities and Web 2.0 behaviors to start a conversation with users and buyers. For these and other reasons, we’re glad to welcome Intel.com to the 2010 eBusiness Index. May the best brand player win.

Brocade.com: Has anyone else noticed that the network systems industry is consolidating like a cardboard box in the rain? If not, spend some quality time looking for a fourth network systems Website (we also evaluate Cisco.com, Nortel.com and Juniper.net twice a year.  that has any best practices and is larger than a newt. After we spent some quality time considering the candidates, we flipped a coin between Brocade.com and Enterasys.com. Brocade.com won the toss.

We’ve got some real hope for Brocade.com in 2010 since it boasts a bevy of Web 2.0 behaviors, uses the same mega-menus as Juniper.net, and operates communities that show some promise. Of course, the devil’s in the details. Stay tuned for the results from our first evaluation which will be available in Q2 2010. (tag: network systems)

Deloitte.com: Deloitte’s inclusion on the 2010 eBusiness Index roster is due, in large part, to EDS.com riding into the sunset. Quite frankly, we’re glad to have a reason to shake up the professional services sites we cover. Most of them have been skating on the innovation and design fronts for too many years.

Deloitte provides a much needed breath of fresh air to our professional services roster. It’s built on a well crafted design and its lively first person voice takes much of the voodoo out of the consulting services conversation. All in all, we expect Deloitte.com to raise the bar for Accenture.com, and especially IBM Global Services. It should be interesting to see how those sites stack up now that there’s a new deputy sheriff in town.  (tag: professional services)

Here’s the rest of the sites we’ll be evaluating in 2010. If you are a siteIQ client, you can read more about these sites’ strengths and challenges in our new executive brief in the siteIntelligence Research Center.

• Adobe.com
• Microsoft.com
• Symantec.com
• CA.com
• Oracle.com
• SAP.com
• Dell.com
• HP.com
• IBM.com
• Cisco.com
• Nortel.com
• Juniper.net
• CDW.com
• Insight.com
• NewEgg.com
• Accenture.com
• IBM Global Services (zone)

What do you think of these sites? Sound off in comments

Of course, gone is not forgotten on the Web. Sun.com’s award winning usability & effectiveness and trendsetting best practices will be available online via the Wayback archives for years to come. For our part, our decade of work with the Sun.com team has generated gigs of best practices reviews. Although I can’t predict exactly when the Sun.com site will become the newest Borg within Oracle.com’s red and  white collective – I know that its forward thinking designs and best practices will be part of our analysis for years to come.

My hat is off to these professionals. Oracle’s loss is certain to be someone else’s gain.

OK, it’s official. Oracle will acquire Sun Microsystems by the end of the summer. Although I have to give Oracle kudos for a brilliant strategic acquisition (and tweaking IBM’s nose for good measure), flipping the Sun.com site into the Oracle paradigm won’t be as easy as its other acquisitions.

I’ve watched Oracle for about 30 years as an industry analyst — which means I’ve had a front row seat for all of Oracle’s growth, and most of its acquisitions.

When acquisitions are the issue, the script has always been pretty much the same. Oracle announces its intent to purchase an IT industry firm, engages in various firefights with a bevy of aggrieved CEOs and shareholders, occasionally spends some quality time with the SEC, finally closes the deal — and then takes the acquired company’s Website off the airwaves about two nanoseconds after the ink on the deal dries.

Generally, the first iteration of this process is a bit ham handed. Forget preserving the acquired company’s Web prowess & knowledge, brand, share of mind, or easing customers into a new parent organization. The acquired company’s URL is instantly directed to a landing page deep inside Oracle.com that announces the acquisition, positions the company’s products within Oracle’s strategic roster, points visitors to support, and  waxes poetic about Oracle’s commitment to existing customers who have, more often than not, been in the nail biting, front row seats of a less-than-friendly acquisition. Nothing like a bit of drama to create customer angst.

To Oracle’s credit, its “cut to the chase” Web techniques have worked well for the company. How many of you can remember J.D. Edwards core value proposition or market segment? Stumped? How about PeopleSoft or Siebel? OK, let’s try BEA. The lesson here is, of course, simple. There’s no percentage in delaying the inevitable when a company becomes part of bigger parent’s portfolio.

Sun — a horse of a different color

To date, Oracle.com has successfully integrated software companies that are leaders in secondary (albeit attractive) markets that map to Oracle’s strategic product & market growth objectives — and, in relative terms, are the size of a newt. That’s not Sun Microsystems. At $13 billion, Sun is neither the size a newt — or a pure play software company. Rather, it is a purveyor of boutique-class, high performance servers and storage systems that appeal to a loyal and highly vocal constituency (think Apple, here), services that support these systems — and a portfolio of software applications that are open source-centric, nominally priced (think Open Office), or can be downloaded for free (not Oracle’s business model). Add to the mix a community of developers and partners who are committed to Sun’s vision of the industry as it should be (rather than where it is or is actually going), and you have all of the elements of an acquisition built on oil and water. And that just one reason why the Oracle.com team has its hands full.

Which tail will wag the dog?

Although Oracle presents its acquisition decision in terms of its corporate strategic advantage in acquiring a company that owns the lighting-fast servers that are the preferred platforms for its database applications, and huge upsides related to owning the powerful Java platform, the fact is that Oracle.com is, and has always been, a site optimized around marketing and selling software applications. Although behaviors are notably better than observed in previous years, Oracle.com is still known for a dearth of product details, over-reliance on contracted third-party endorsements (think paid up white paper mills and analyst opinions for hire), and its tendency to tweak competitors’ noses at every turn.

None of these schemas fit Sun.com’s cultural behaviors that center on customer product reviews, lively developer forums and discussions, community-generated blogs — and more product details than most buyers can use. Think of it as a culture clash between two titans operating in different galaxies — and a battle that Sun.com is likely to lose.

What Oracle can learn from Sun.com

Since ultimate control goes to the victor, what is left are the lessons that can be learned. Given that Oracle.com has never been in the business of selling hardware — much less open-source software that hopefully nudges the converted to the check out counter — here’s four modest proposals from the peanut gallery.

Don’t lose Sun.com’s powerful voice. Although Oracle.com’s marketing voice has improved over time, it still relies heavily on the “we’re great, everyone else agrees, buy us” marketing model. That works when you are one of two 800 pound gorillas in software (the other one being IBM Software Group). Not so effective when you are swimming upstream against other entrenched hardware and storage vendors.

As it turns out, Sun.com has one of the IT industry’s most effective and powerful voices that balances the “geek-speak” technical buyers love with the “big picture” descriptions that ring with business buyers. Oracle would be a fool to fiddle with this voice which has been carefully honed to appeal to Sun’s core buyers.

Use Sun.com’s system pricing and selection schemas to create a competitive advantage. Currently, Sun.com has one of the industry’s most powerful product pricing and sorting/selection schemas — which are notably missing from competitive Websites. It also has world-class configurators and quote systems that are second to none. If Oracle wants to create a product discovery and selection process advantage over competitors (such and IBM and Dell), it should retain and expand these features.

Harness Sun.com’s customer reviews & its crystal clear buying process. IBM.com, HP.com and EMC.com are blissfully unaware of (well, actually ignoring) the power of customer voices and reviews — and the combined Oracle.com and Sun.com can capitalize on this omission. With the exception of Dell, most of Oracle’s new competitors also do a relatively poor job of clarifying how to buy their server and storage products. Here, Oracle can profit from Sun’s fundamental design that encourages visitors to take the next steps — whether that’s contacting a partner, downloading trial software, or signing up to try and buy hardware.

Don’t piss off the natives. Sun has something that Oracle hasn’t encountered with its previous acquisitions — millions of developers and tech heads who are passionate and vocal proponents of Sun’s quixotic (albeit ultimately fatal) vision of how the IT industry should be. That’s not to say that Oracle doesn’t have its own million beanie army. It does. It’s just that its army signed up for the tour of duty and Sun’s got drafted.

Like most draftees, Sun’s developers are in a quandary. Will Oracle discard Sun’s long-standing commitment to open source and industry standards? Which software, hardware and systems will make the cut? As important, how will Sun’s developer communities fare inside one of the industry’s largest and most pragmatic business software entities which values revenue growth and market share over philosophical matters?

If the blogosphere is any indication, there’s plenty of angst to go around. And when developers are uncertain about their future, the first thing they do is stop developing — and the second thing they do is defect.

Although we wouldn’t argue that Oracle’s success hinges on the goodwill of Sun’s developer community, there’s no doubt that these developers are a powerful engine that keeps Sun’s products — including jewels like Java — on the map. Here, Oracle.com (and more precisely the Oracle Technology Network team) could play a vital role in calming the natives.

Rather than following the normal script which calls for Sun’s Java.net, Big Admin, and Sun Developer Network sites to be subsumed into OTN, the smart play would be to lightly re-brand these venues and leave them in place. This approach would avoid dropping Sun’s developers into an entirely new venue that lacks the lively community and Web 2.0 behaviors they are used to and quite frankly, one that performs well below Sun’s developer properties. It would also send a strong message that Oracle values the culture and role of these vital communities — and keep them from defecting to other brands, including IBM.

It was a bit of a lark, to be sure. And like many of our larks, it delivered some interesting results.

To see why, take a peek at this graph that illustrates how the communities operated by seven leading IT companies fare based on 32 usability metrics.

First, the good news. SAP and Citrix deliver pretty much what is expected. The bad news for Citrix is that, at a 54% usability score, its community doesn’t look very usable – and it isn’t. At the other end of the spectrum, SAP’s communities appear to be the most usable – and (dismal look and feel aside) they are.

Next, let’s look at the sites that exceeded expectations. That would be Dell. My tour of the community delivered Dell an average 69.1% usability score. At 70.8%, Kenna’s power drive says that Dell’s communities actually deliver slightly more than expected.

This leaves us with the communities that are like an unfortunate blind date. Among these, EMC and Oracle fared worst.

My tour of EMC’s communities delivered good, but not great, usability results (62.4%), but Kenna’s deep dive shows that once you get past the flash, this community is almost unusable.

Oracle also seemed to be a reasonably usable venue if you are just lurking around, and my usability scores averaged out to 60.8%. By the time Kenna finished rambling through the site’s inconsistent behaviors and technical problems, she thought 54% was a gift.

Sun's redesigned search pages still deliver an industry best practice. Detailed content category, type, format and language filters make navigating results a snap

Sun.com’s search design is very effective for delivering mountains of organized and logical search results because it sorts and presents information  based on common categories as well as resource type or affiliation.  Each category-specific page clearly indicates the number of results found within the category — and each list opens to display additional subcategories.

The “Search Help” link leads to useful, instructive information that is designed to help visitors construct a search that will yield the most relevant results. This page also includes several search hints designed to assist visitors in entering the most accurate key words or phrases that will yield the results they require.

Best of all, Sun.com offers an advanced site search feature under the “More Options” link that provides users with some truly unique capabilities. Users can specify that returned pages meet specific file format criteria (.PDF, XML, Text, HTML), and can also specify content written in up to 13 different languages.

The good news is that everyone can learn from the steps and mis-steps of these leading IT vendors.

siteIQ clients have access to our study results in a new siteIQ SnapShot report, Global Websites | Key Metrics | Language Compliance. For those who don’t have access to the siteIntelligence Research Center, I thought I’d share some of the more interesting things we learned.

The Big Picture

The IT industry has come a long way since we last looked at the global landscape in 2005. Then, language compliance in key markets, such as Latin America and Asia Pacific, were hit and miss at best. Today, these regions stand out as having some of the strongest language compliant Websites. Among the companies studied, Dell’s Latin American regional sites are the venues to watch.

In a reprise of our 2005 results, Oracle retains the crown as the worst global language performer.

On the other end of the spectrum, the emerging market du jour – Eastern Europe – is a language compliance disaster. Here, companies are following a number of less-than-effective strategies.

Those that deliver sites in Russian appear to be unaware that this language is spoken in less than half of the 29 countries in this region. Others, like Oracle, fall back on English-based Websites in a region where English is not a first, second or an official language. None of the companies we studied “get it”, but if you want to see the best of a bad lot, spend some time observing Eastern European sites operated by IBM.

Among the companies we studied, Dell, IBM, and Cisco stand out as good-to-excellent performers across the globe.

• Dell achieves this distinction by having a massive global footprint (sites in 166 countries), an intricate and highly effective regional schemas – and also pads its overall score by having the best Latin America performance across the board.

• IBM, with sites in 98 countries, is actually the provisional leader in our minds, due to a strategy that delivers content (at minimum) in the target language at the top four levels of sites. IBM also gets our vote for leadership because it is the only vendor in our group that operates zero (yes, zero) sites that are not language compliant.

• Cisco (75 sites) also gets our ‘good housekeeping’ seal of approval by pursuing a strategy that, on average, delivers either perfect language compliance or compliance at the top four levels.

In a reprise of our 2005 results, Oracle retains the crown as the worst global language performer. Over a third of Oracle’s sites are not language compliant and it appears that the company has never seen an English-based global Website it didn’t like. If you want to see language ‘bait and switch’ in action, Oracle is the company to watch.

The Method to the Madness

When all of the scores were tallied, we found that four distinct global language strategies are in play around the globe.

The most effective is the “Almost Perfect” strategy executed by sites that deliver virtually all content (except support) in one of the country’s top three prime or official languages (as determined by data provided by the CIA FactBook).  Although the random piece of content may be delivered in English, these sites clearly focus on delivering most marketing, channel, corporate, and promotional information to visitors in their lingua franca. Just over half (51.3%) of the sites we studied fall into this category—but when you factor out English-speaking countries, this drops to 22.8% of non-English speaking sites. In other words, relatively few companies operate perfect, non-English-based global sites.

The next effective is the “Largely Compliant” strategy which is observed on 14.8% of the sites. These sites deliver the vast majority of content in the country language, but rely on US or English-based content up to 20% of the time (we would have preferred 10% but 20% ended up as the logical break point). Of the 700+ sites reviewed, only 14.8% were deemed to be following a ‘Largely Compliant” strategy.  The company that relies most on this strategy is Cisco (48 sites or 64% of its total global footprint).

When you get to product detail, however, you are on your own unless you speak English. Of the sites reviewed, about a fifth (19.6%) fall into the “top four levels” category.

We dubbed the next strategy the “Top Four Levels” gambit, which reflects that these sites tend to deliver the top four levels of the site in the target language, and then link visitors to the company’s U.S. site content at lower levels. Typically, these top four levels consist of a language-compliant home page and features, reseller and channel information, product gateway pages, press releases and promotions and occasionally, top level product pages. When you get to product detail, however, you are on your own unless you speak English. Of the sites reviewed, about a fifth (19.6%) fall into the “top four levels” category. Here, SAP is most likely to pursue this strategy (53.1%), followed by IBM (33.7% of all sites).

Finally, we have the least effective strategy across the globe—the “Non-Compliant or Bait and Switch” strategy. These sites give every IT vendor a bad name (to put it mildly). They either deliver language compliant home page links that lead to English content—or don’t even try to deliver a site in the country’s target language. (This, of course, begs the question: if they don’t speak English, what’s the point?) The good news is that only 14.2% of global sites we studied exhibit this egregious behavior. Among the companies we studied, Oracle gets the prize (35.9% of sites) and Sun Microsystems gets an honorable mention.

Words to the Wise

Even the best funded Website teams struggle . . . what should the less well-heeled do?

When all of the numbers are tallied up, it’s obvious that even the best funded IT vendors (note: the companies we studied spend well over $2 billion annually on their Website operations) struggle to deliver perfect global language behaviors. Given that, what should the less well-heeled do?

• Avoid List Envy. Ignore where your competitors (or leading IT companies) are operating global Websites. Just because a company has a footprint in a country doesn’t mean it operates an effective Website. To avoid playing follow the loser, map your global Website strategy to your own channel strategy—and then prioritize countries based on their IT spending, the number of Internet users in each country, and  the country’s real language requirements. If you can’t support the site in the user’s local language, put this country at the bottom of your list.

• Think Regional. Some of the best performers build their excellence on well-crafted regional language sites. Dell’s Latin American sites—which are built around country-specific home pages backed by a Spanish-based regional site—is a classic example of a regional schema that works. Regions that are prime for regional language designs are Latin America, the Caribbean and about 10 countries in Eastern Europe.

What do you think of the global Websites operated by IT companies? Sound off in comments.

Striking changes include the bold use of color, more balanced navigation, and a more efficient design

Beyond these immediately eye-catching alterations are an assortment of more subtle modifications that achieve a couple of objectives. First, navigational options are more evenly distributed, which balances home page content. Second, popular features, including downloads & free trials, are more prominently positioned making them particularly obvious & accessible to visitors.

Visual changes aside, the most significant modifications to the Sun.com home page lie in the reorganization of existing links — and addition of new links — that allow visitors to enter the site based on affiliation or objective. Admittedly, the previous home page provided access to resources via a smattering of audience-specific links and often encouraged visitors to navigate forward by activity, the explicit focus on audience segmentation, however, is a new approach at Sun.com.

As important, this new design incorporates nuances that elevate these behaviors to the next level. The terminology used to label links is consistent with how IT Websites should communicate with visitors & customers in the age of Web 2.0. In fact, the “Community Voices” nomenclature is a stroke of Web 2.0 genius that effectively conveys the social networking nature of the content delivered beyond this link and its subsequent fly-out menu links. In addition, the “Sun For…” global navigational option is more than a passing nod to the fact that one of Web 2.0’s underlying principles is tightly-focused communities of interest, and that these types of venues are available at Sun.com.

From a usability perspective, including links not previously available on the Sun.com home page makes this new version much more effective than its predecessor was. A case in point is the “Innovating@Sun” link that consolidates access to Sun’s flagship technologies into a single fly-out menu; previously these links were littered about the home page (or missing from Sun.com’s home page completely). More important, the audience specific links provided in the secondary horizontal navigational panel substantiate the inference of the “Sun for…” global navigational option; strengthen visitor awareness of Sun.com’s community-based zones; ensure quick access to pertinent content based on affiliation; and give Sun the opportunity to educate users about products & solutions that are designed to meet their unique needs.

It also bears mention that the tone of Sun.com’s new home page is quite different than it has traditionally been. In fact, a quick scan of the page’s various content modules reveals a much more product-centric focus with storage systems at the center of the discussion and strong enticements that encourage visitors to download free software. In contrast to previous messages that invited visitors to explore Sun’s programs & concepts; discover Sun activities & innovations; participate in social networking activities; or begin the research & selection process, this new home page content is distinctively more “hard sell” than ever before.

Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that Sun.com’s new home page isn’t free from some glitches. In particular, the links in the secondary navigational panel don’t return a corresponding zone home page as most users will expect. Rather, clicking these links simply loads an audience-specific feature in the primary home page module. In addition, scrolling over the individual downloads modules fails to reveal any information or options associated with the corresponding technology; instead, visitors must click on a specific option to reveal this information. Lastly, siteIQ analysts were quick to note that the links in the “Community Voices” fly-out menu lead to independent mini-sites that neglect to include the Sun.com global navigational panel or an obvious reciprocal link back to the Sun.com home page.

These anomalies are trivial, however, when one important fact is considered — this new design approach is only skin-deep. With the exception of the updated global navigational panel, none of the attributes or concepts employed on Sun.com’s latest home page has been incorporated into pages within the site. As a result, visitors experience a huge visual disconnect as they navigate deeper and encounter content that bears no resemblance to the originating page.

SITEIQ VIEW | While we are impressed with the visual, structural, and organizational changes recently made to Sun.com’s home page, were aren’t surprised to see them in play; similar approaches have been employed by many competitive venues for the past twenty-four months. Consequently, we view the launch of this page as evidence that Sun is engaged in a furious game of catch up rather than as a groundbreaking event that ushers in new behaviors or best practices. Only time will tell, however, whether this page will effectively serve all masters, and if the approaches used will permeate the remainder of the site. While we encourage the Sun team to explore all possible options that support current and evolving business strategies, we also offer this reminder. HP flirted with posting a home page that was designed to eliminate clutter & escort visitors into the site based on a handful of highly focused objectives & audience segments earlier this year, then it disappeared in a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t moment when the HP team realized it didn’t effectively achieve all objectives.

Insight.com and Newegg.com both receive scores that place them in a league with IT industry leaders — and well ahead of one of their major partners — HP.

When I rolled up the first quarter 2008 usability numbers this week, a couple of interesting facts jumped out. First, Newegg.com’s product marketing score is nearly 71%, which puts it on par with the eBusiness Index average (71.38%) — and places it in close proximity to enterprise systems heavyweights in the effectiveness rankings. Second, and more important, all three reseller sites — Newegg.com, CDW.com, and Insight.com — earn e-selling-related usability scores that are well above the eBusiness Index average, and actually rival those of the ultimate online channel — Dell.com.

Admittedly, these are two bright spots in an otherwise checkered usability landscape for these companies.  Website design and navigation & architecture scores average around 60% — well below the target 75% score. Corporate marketing comes in at an embarrassing 44%, and services marketing & support scores sit in the mid 30% range. To add insult to injury, these sites clock equally appalling training & education scores that average around 30%. Community/industry marketing scores are the true disappointment, however. Here, the mean usability score doesn’t even crack 25%. So much for Web 2.0 among leading reseller sites.

Despite these bumps in the road, I have to give the teams managing Newegg.com, CDW.com, and Insight.com credit for focusing on “Job One” in their universe: making products easy for visitors to purchase online, and delivering persistent call to action elements that encourage visitors to become customers. These behaviors, combined with competitive pricing that often meets or beats the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, are undoubtedly partially responsible for the growing popularity of these (and other) reseller sites.

It’s my contention, however, that the real reason these sites are selling record numbers of their partner’s/supplier’s products is an architectural structure that facilitates forward momentum based on customer specifications and/or requirements. At these sites, visitors dictate the context in which they view products, and no matter the route taken, pricing and the ability to begin the purchasing process are central elements of the click stream. In fact, in contrast to some enterprise-class sites where purchasing the exact same product often requires navigational gyrations through  mountains of poorly organized content, these leading reseller sites make online purchasing a breeze.