CIOs Still Love Microsoft

According to Piper Jaffray’s quarterly survey of 135 chief information officers, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is the most important “mega-vendor” to CIOs. Sixty-one, or 45 percent, of those surveyed chose the tech company — more than double the selections as runner-up, Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL).

After Microsoft and Oracle came the following companies, in this order: SAP (NYSE:SAP), Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO), IBM (NYSE:IBM), EMC (NYSE:EMC), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL). A mere 4 percent chose Apple, and just 10 percent or less picked the last four companies.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has led the pack in Piper Jaffray’s survey, but their lead is steadily increasing. Last year, just 33 percent gave the mega-vendor the thumbs up. The report stated: “CIOs state that ‘there are really no alternatives to Microsoft.’ [Others said] ‘MS services are getting better and will allow us to move more to the cloud,’ and ‘we are highly invested in their technologies and dependent on them extending their platforms.’”

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