Software Companies Top Aberdeen 100 List

In what appears to be a statement about the importance of business and operations supports systems, nine of the top 10 influential technology vendors for 2008, according to Aberdeen Group, either are software companies or the server vendors that support them. Cisco was the lone pure hardware provider.

Microsoft topped the list, followed by Oracle, SAP, IBM, Cisco, HP, Dell, Salesforce.com, EMC and Sun Microsystems.

The Annual State of the Market Report from the Aberdeen Group showcases the results of five years of research and up-to-date insight from 4,645 snap-shot survey respondents. New to the report this year is a compilation of the Top 100 organizations that excelled at providing value to the business community.

Other well-established brands such as Google (No. 11), RIM/Blackberry (No. 12), Apple (No. 16), Motorola (No. 22), Intel (No. 29), and Intuit (No. 46) were on the list, too.

Mobility, identified in last year's Aberdeen Report as the No. 1 technology growth area, was represented in the Top 100 by AT&T, Verizon, Sony Ericsson, Sprint/Nextel and T-Mobile.

However, this year the results from the 2008 Aberdeen Report indicate that mobility will take a back seat as business intelligence and analytics have the greatest impact over the next 3-5 years.

The report identifies that the top criteria organizations use when selecting a technology solution include: total cost of ownership (43 percent), product functionality (42 percent), vendor stability (24 percent), market specific knowledge and experience (24 percent), domain or industry expertise (22 percent), and reputation (21 percent).