CIO Insight- The well known IT magazine in US, Selected 10 best software companies of year 2008 according to its company value, product reliability and product loyalty.

In 2008, the rank of many traditional software companies dropped, from the recent statistics, Google is the number 1 software company in 2008 and its competitor, Microsoft, fall to Number 7.
Following are the list of these 10 companies from CIO Insight:

Number 1: Google- Overall Score: 81
Company value: 82
Product reliability: 79
Product loyalty: 83
Google continued innovation and strong moves in the mobility space succeeded in knocking Red Hat out of the top spot.


Number 2: Red Hat– Overall Score: 79
Company value: 75
Product reliability: 75
Product loyalty: 92
Last year overall winner remains strong, its ratings this year, with the responsiveness to needs of customers engendering high loyalty levels.


Number 3: Citrix– Overall Score: 73
Company value: 73
Product reliability: 73
Product loyalty: 89
Citrix held steady at No. 3 just edging out Adobe, but failed to rank in the top two, as it did in 2006 and 2005.


Number 4: Adobe- Overall Score: 72
Company value: 72
Product reliability: 73
Product loyalty: 93
Adobe just missed moving into the top three, but took home the highest loyalty rankings of any software vendor (besides Google).


Number 5: Novell- Overall Score: 65
Company value: 63
Product reliability: 67
Product loyalty: 72
Novell raised four spots from last year but low customer loyalty scores bogged the firm down in this year rankings.


Number 6: Salesforce- Overall Score: 62
Company value: 62
Product reliability: 62
Product loyalty: 86
A new entry to the list, the Software-as-a-Service forerunner showed average performance in value and reliability but got a big boost from strong customer loyalty.


Number 7: Microsoft- Overall Score: 61
Company value: 61
Product reliability: 61
Product loyalty: 83
The same goes for the software behemoth- solid customer loyalty helped keep it hovering around the same spot as last year and fended off others.


Number 8: Cognos- Overall Score: 60
Company value: 60
Product reliability: 60
Product loyalty: 78
The business intelligence vendor leapt four spots to regain its 2005 footing, but it still faces an uphill climb to reach the highest tier of software providers.


Number 9: Business Object (SAP)- Overall Score: 59
Company value: 61
Product reliability: 57
Product loyalty: 82
Business Objects has steadily slipped from its 2005 perch as No. 3 in the software market but just missed eclipsing rival Cognos this year.


Number 10: Oracle- Overall Score: 57
Company value: 56
Product reliability: 59
Product loyalty: 80
Larry Ellison’s acquisition machine kept humming this year, but a poor showing in value just barely kept Oracle in the Top 10.

Edited By Henry Lu