Brand Identity

A few years ago, in another life, I was presenting some research related to brand identity and the delivery of IT services to a tech-savvy group in Paris. I asked the attendees what they thought of when they heard the IBM brand name. Though the attendees gave a number of answers, the common consensus was that IBM represented quality, stability, and market superiority. In essence, IBM was a company these consumers of IT solutions trusted. Well, judging from the results of the Systems Management poll on which vendor you trust the most, little has changed.IBM came out on top, capturing nearly a quarter of your votes as the most trusted vendor, edging out closest competitor Dell Computer which 22 percent of the respondents said is the most trustworthy. These two companies are, at least so far, well ahead of their nearest competitors - Microsoft and Apple - which each took in 17 percent of the vote as of Monday. These two companies have shared a lot of headlines lately as well, perhaps indicating that maybe some of the goodwill toward Apple is rubbing off on the perenially less-trusted vendor. Or, conversely, maybe some of you are transferring your lack of confidence in Microsoft to Apple.

So who brought up the rear? Sony and Toshiba had few fans, with just 5 percent naming Sony as their most trusted vendor and only one percent of respondents putting Toshiba at the top of their list. Toshiba employees, perhaps?