Upgrades are painful when each station requires three days of training, said a CIO from a Midwestern beverage company who asked to remain anonymous. HP led in this area as well with a 5.83 score for its printers and a ranking of third for server hardware. This was an area in which Microsoft excelled with a 5.58 score on 63 votes. Retek, whose relatively smaller number of customers appear to be very happy with the company s products, services, and approach, was the highest ranked software company in usability. Microstrategy led in the CRM area with a 5.29.
Usability is an area that is very difficult to assess, says one respondent.
Several readers cited HP printer usability as an area in which the vendor has improved in recent years. Latest printer models come with tops that open, a control panel with LCD, cancel print button, and tray locking. Both Retek and Microsoft were cited by members of the CGT 100 screening panel as very easy to modify. How the CGT 100 vendors help companies improve their own compliance programs is difficult to measure. We left the question wide open and got some surprise responses.