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CIO ‘cred’ for Red Hat – New survey puts Hatters back at No. 1

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Note: The Skinny blog is written by Rick Smith, editor and co-founder of Local Tech Wire and business editor of WRAL.com.

RALEIGH, N.C. – The Hatters are smiling even more broadly this week. The new CIO Insight survey is out and Red Hat is back on top in two crucial categories.

Not only is Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) ranked by chief information officers as No. 1 in software along with Google but the world’s top Linux software developer and services provider shares the top spot with Google as the top software firm in “The Big Picture” category.

With a rating of 85, Red Hat finished first in the Big Picture category for increasing revenues as well as for being flexible and in responsiveness. The Hatters were second in the “met quality expectations” category.

The Big Picture includes hardware and software providers. Intel finished first overall by a point. Siemens shared second with Google and Red Hat at 85.

In software, Google and Red Hat both scored 85. Red Hat scored slightly better in reliability (86) than Google (85). Both shared 85s for value. However, Google did get the edge in the vendor “stay with” category by a 97-92 score.

Talk about street cred. This is cred from CIOs – and that kind of endorsement should help CEO Jim Whitehurst and company drive more Linux/JBoss sales over the coming months.

Red Hat’s profits and revenues are beating Street expectations and the stock is hot, but the CIO survey delivers beyond the bottom line. What better for word of mouth and guerilla marketing than CIO endorsements?

The news was not as good a year ago. Red Hat placed seventh in the Big Picture after finishing No. 1 the year before.

In the new survey, Red Hat also cracked the “Who Rose Most” category with a jump of 10 points from 75.

Best areas of improvement:

• On time/budget: Up a whopping 15

• Value: Up 10

• Reliability: Up 12

Finishing No. 1 in the survey is nothing new for the Hatters. This week’s shared top score in software with Google is the fifth honor in seven years.

Still, the rebound this year may make 2009's No. 1 the most memorable.

Cisco, Nortel, Dell, IBM slip

The CIO news was not as welcome for some other firms.

Cisco slipped to No. 2 in networking behind Siemens, and Nortel fell to eighth from fifth a year ago.

In hardware, Dell tumbled to fourth from first behind HP and Sun (tied at No. 1) and Fujitsu.

IBM, meanwhile, dropped to fifth from third in hardware.

The Big Picture top 10 in order:

• Intel
• Google (tied No. 2)
• Red Hat (tied No. 2)
• Siemens (tied No. 2)
• APC
• Cisco (tied No. 6)
• HP (tied No. 6)
• Sun (tied No. 6)
• Research in Motion (tied No. 9)
• NetApp (tied No. 9)

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The Skinny

WRAL Local Tech Wire Publisher and Editor Rick Smith dishes out tidbits from the local technology sector. Read more articles…