Microsoft maintains sector trust 2

IT | Tania Mason | 16 Nov 2009

Microsoft is still far and away the most trusted IT brand among charities, according to new research from ASI Europe.

Of the more-than-100 charities that responded to a question about which brands they trusted most, more than twice as many said Microsoft than any other brand. Trailing behind were HP, Dell, Google and then Apple.

ASI's Robin Fisk suggested that this is probably because Microsoft gives large discounts to charities on most of its mainstream software packages and so its penetration in the sector remains very high, with 90 per cent of respondents using it.

The findings were part of a survey of charity IT professionals unveiled at the Charity IT Conference run by Civil Society Media last week.

Fisk summarised the main findings as: “More positives than negatives, many more opportunities than challenges, and social media is still a solution looking for a problem”.

More than two-thirds said their biggest IT opportunity was better management of their websites, and 48 per cent cited cloud computing and mobile web applications as opportunities.

Two-thirds said their website was not linked to their supporter database.

Some 81 per cent said they used social networking sites but 46 per cent said they felt Twitter was of little or no use. Facebook and YouTube were cited as the most useful, but there was minimal support for either Flickr, Delicious or LinkedIn.

The top three challenges identified were lack of budget (67 per cent of respondents), integration of systems (55 per cent) and the availability of the right skills within the team to manage IT effectively (47 per cent). Small charities also cited getting a decent website as a key challenge.

Directory: ASI Europe
Who's Who: Robin Fisk

Place a comment

Kevin Priest
Development Worker
Dudley Council for Voluntary Service
18 Nov 2009

More people buy the Sun newspaper than any other but is it the best? Lots of people are voting for Jedward on X Factor but are they the best act? Can the general public be relied upon to pick the best software? Just because it's the biggest seller doesn't mean it's the best.

Why don't you ask the same people how often they moan about their computer because it's crashed again or because they need yet another security update or because a virus has deleted their data and then remind them it's on Windows from Microsoft.

[Reply]

Ian Ryder
Managing Director
appiChar
18 Nov 2009
Response to [ Kevin Priest]

Hi Kevin, I think you're on slightly dangerous ground suggesting maybe you know better than everyone else?!

It's a discussion that's had a lot of mileage in this sector and there is no wrong or right answer. The reality is still that Microsoft software is very well known and understood so therefore is seen as low risk. There are endless people out there able to support and manage it without a problem - the same can't always be said for alternative solutions.

I'm sure that will change over time but getting almost-free Microsoft software is still pretty much a no-brainer for the majority of organisations that just want something that works so they can get on with what they exist to do. I completely understand the ethical argument for using open source but unless you really understand all of the issues with that it's a tough one for your average organisation to even give thought to.

Kind regards,
Ian

[Reply]

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