Rating the vendors: Apple, IBM, HP shine; Sprint, SAP, CA don't

The top technology vendors for 2008--as rated by customers--feature IBM, HP, Amazon Web Services, Apple and Research in Motion. Vendors that were panned include Sprint Nextel, SunGard, SAP and CA among others.

Those are the takeaways from VendorRate, a Web-based service that tallies quantitative as well as qualitative ratings from customers. VendorRate's year-end report was based on polls of more than 3,000 IT professionals. The company then cooks up a composite score based on various factors (communication, timeliness, usability, customer service, reliability, budget and expertise) from polls it conducts on its Web site, tradeshows and conferences.

Here's a look at the top 10 customer satisfaction ratings on a scale of 100 from VendorRate (click to enlarge charts):

And the lowest rated vendors:

Among other odds and ends:

• Accenture was the lowest rated consultant in 2008 with a score of 55.
• The top reseller for the year was CDW with a score of 87.
• Small companies rated ChemSW, iXsystems, Informix, Intel and Super Micro Computer as their top five vendors with scores ranging from 96 to 87. Small companies are defined as companies with less than 250 employees. Sage Software, Sprint Nextel, Level 3, Cbeyond and Oracle Applications were rated the bottom vendors on customer service. Sage had a score of 46 with Oracle Applications pulling a 53.
• Medium-sized companies (250 to 2,500 employees) panned Comcast Business, Symantec Enterprise Storage/Backup and Sprint. VMware with a score of 89 and Informix performed well.

And here's the breakdown of vendor ratings by large enterprises: