Global CIO: Is IBM Or Apple The World's #1 Tech Brand?

#26 SAP Brand value: $12.8 billion. Market cap: $57 billion."SAP continues its steady rise. It launched a new campaign, 'It's Time for a Clear New World,' which clarified this shift to customer needs, showing how SAP solutions offer businesses transparency and accountability. . . . SAP continues to grow its social media community and corporate citizenship practice through initiatives like EcoHub, an online marketplace for customers to discover, evaluate and buy SAP’s Ecosystem solutions. But, while the brand has excelled in certain areas, this year its attempt to offer software as an online service (called Business byDesign) wasn’t a huge success."

#36 Amazon.com Brand value: $9.67 billion. Market cap: $66.25 billion. "It was a great year for Amazon.com. Although it saw new Kindle competitors this year, it still retains roughly 90 percent of the e-book market. Similarly, it continued to benefit from the recession, as customers continued to bargain shop online. Still, despite significant growth, the brand is likely to experience challenges in the years to come."

#41 Dell Brand value: $8.88 billion. Market cap: $24.16 billion. "Dell has started to focus on developing its brand and sub-brands more than before, although it has had difficulty moving away from its marketing-oriented policies. As a result, Dell is having trouble differentiating itself and establishing a unique and relevant value proposition. Brands like Acer are catching up in PC market share. Dell has also lagged in Cloud Computing, with brands such as NEC and Fujitsu taking over some of Dell’s business."

#43 eBay Brand value: $8.45 billion. Market cap: $31.35 billion. "EBay is in the process of transforming its image from online auctioneer into a global internet marketplace and payment service, with PayPal now a third of total sales. The company has been slowly getting back into the race, with more significant course corrections this year. Over the past year, eBay has de-emphasized auctions and put more focus on buy-it-now, fixed-price sales."

#47 Accenture Brand value: $7.48 billion. Market cap: $25.35 billion. "In a challenging recessionary year, Accenture positioned itself for the future by enhancing its core business, expanding in fast-developing markets and investing in new and emerging growth areas. It launched a new secure, high-speed, high-volume mobile financial transaction software solution for telecommunications service providers and large banks."

#54 BlackBerry Brand value: $6.76 billion. Market cap: $25.1 billion. "BlackBerry remains the most popular smartphone brand in the corporate world. In an effort to respond to customer needs, it continues to expand its customer base and diversify, moving from device to network services and widening its product line. It is also opening 'BlackBerry App World' – although it is still far behind the iPhone apps store. While all this expansion is a sign of a healthy brand, the latest push from Apple to make inroads in the corporate world continues to put pressure on BlackBerry."

#88 Adobe Brand value: $3.63 billion. Market cap: $17.2 billion. "Adobe leverages its values of genuine, exceptional and involved innovation through a portfolio that includes some of the most respected and recognized software brands. . . . With this move Adobe is well positioned to deliver solutions that can transform the future of engaging experiences and e-commerce across all digital content, platforms and devices."

Worth noting: the largest gains in "brand value" were made by Apple, up 37%; Google, up 36%; BlackBerry, up 32%; and Amazon, up 23%. On the flip side, the biggest drops in "brand value" came from Nokia, down 15%; Dell, off 14%; and Accenture, down 3%.

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