The Trust Survey, Google and Microsoft
October 27, 2009
“IT leaders trust Microsoft more than Google, 2-to-1” opened a line of thought for me that I had not considered. Large, publicly traded companies and “trust” are not concepts that I juxtapose. In fact, I don’t think I ever considered a company’s “degree” of trust. Google has the Guha patent document which reveals a system and method for determining trust. Asking humans what big company is more trusted seems somewhat subjective. Dr. Guha’s approach has the benefit of using a specific numerical recipe and data. A survey is a more slippery beast. There’s the notion of the sample, the sample size, and the mechanics of the interview. For example, I just received a second email reminding me to provide a search vendor called SLI Systems with my “views” of the search industry. The fact that a second email is required to get a response tells me quite a bit about the methodology of the survey and, of course, about the credence I will give to the “results” if I see them.
The “score” for Google and Microsoft on the “trust-o-meter” is another kettle of fish. Enron was publicly traded. I wonder what that firm’s trust score is / was. Tyco? You get the idea. Large publicly traded companies create an impression of trust. The reality of the company are often opaque to me until I see news reports of an alleged issue. Sometimes I get a view of trust when I watch a high profile executive in the warm embrace of law enforcement.
Degree of trust? That’s a new thought.
Jason Hiner’s write up reported that Microsoft is more trusted than Google. He said:
We decided to examine that question. On October 20, TechRepublic polled its 90-member panel of U.S. IT executives and asked, “Who do trust more as a technology partner, Microsoft or Google?” The jury – made up of the first 12 respondents – voted 8-4 in favor of Microsoft.
If you are a survey fan, you will want to read the results of this study.
If you are like me, you may want to get additional data and more information before deciding that one large, publicly traded company is more or less trusted than another. As an addled goose, I see some larger philosophical issues in this type of survey. One thing is reasonably certain. Philosophy does not play too much of a role in business when it comes to hitting those quarterly numbers. And what about the issue of public relations spin and marketing wordsmithing?
Trust? An interesting notion, but I don’t accept that there is much difference among large publicly traded companies in the information technology space. Google and Microsoft are similar, just at different points on the capitalist timeline in my opinion. This survey is a great way to generate traffic, however. Trust? Hmmm.
Stephen Arnold, October 27, 2009
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One Response to “The Trust Survey, Google and Microsoft”
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Hi Stephen,
I agree with you that the methodologies we’re using for the survey can’t guarantee with pinpoint accuracy the survey results but with more than 500 participants the results should still be interesting and hopefully useful. This is unabashedly a vendor run survey, the purpose of which is to produce some interesting results that help our industry and SLI by association.
When we launch the survey we send out a request to participate and then a reminder before it closes. The reminder is targeted at people who are busy and forget about an email they had meant to respond to. I’ll make sure you’re removed from any future surveys.
Our survey is really about e-commerce customer-facing technologies that improve the user experience. If any of your readers want to participate in this (vendor promoted) survey before Nov 10, 2009 and be in with a chance to win a Flip Mino HD camcorder then please follow this link http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229RPMAXXTA.
Regards
Geoff Brash
VP of Marketing
SLI Systems