Satisfying Internal Customers Still Top Concern in COMMON Europe Survey

Satisfying internal customers remains at the top of COMMON Europe's Top Concerns survey. Conducted online in May and June and in person at COMMON Europe last week, the survey included responses from 572 customers, business partners/ISVs and IBMers from Europe, Americas, Africa and Australasia.

The second most cited concern was keeping skills current for existing staff. Last year this concern was fifth on the list. Rounding out the top 10 was (information in parenthesis indicates last year's rank):

3. Attract the younger generation to IBM i (10)
4. Do fast application development to fulfill business needs (7)
5. Ensure complete high availability (not listed)
6. Receive consistent high-quality service and support from vendors (4)
7. Treat data security and confidentiality as a business risk (2)
8. Implement web-oriented architectures (not listed)
9. Attract senior executives to IBM i (not listed)
10. Improve data quality (not listed)

Of the 389 customers who responded, 8 percent reported increased operating budgets. Another 51 percent said their budgets were stable; 25 percent had decreased budgets. Capital expenditure budgets were showing an increase for 16 percent of respondents. Forty-two percent had stable cap ex budgets and another 27 percent said those budgets had decreased.

When asked about migrations planned or completed in 2010, of the 343 customers who responded, no one had migrated to IBM i 7.1, although 10.5 percent said they planned to do so and another 37.1 percent said they may do so. Migrating to IBM i 6.1 is much further along with 28 percent saying they had already done so. Another 30.9 percent planned to do so.

Only 2 percent of customers who responded had already migrated to POWER7 hardware with 5.8 percent planning to do so and 28 percent considering the move. BladeCenter migration has been done by 4.7 percent with a few more planning to do so (3.8 percent).

Survey demographics show most respondents were from Europe (373) with 137 from Americas, 41 from Africa and 10 from Australasia. The remaining 11 did not provide that information. Sixty-three respondents were below the age of 35. The bulk of survey takers were between 36 and 50 (281). Another 218 people were above age 50. The remaining 10 did not provide that information.

Totals surveyed: customers, 389; business partners/ISVs, 159; IBMers, 16; no information, 8.