People sure do love their iPhones. Despite growing competition, Apple was just ranked #1 in smartphone customer satisfaction by J.D. Power and Associates for the ninth time. In a survey measuring customer sentiment about things like ease of use, feature set and design, Apple beat out Nokia, Samsung and Motorola. 

For all the talk about companies like Google and Samsung nipping away at Apple's mobile empire, Cupertino still wins at keeping its customers happy, which is a big deal. It might not be market share, but it's still a very valuable metric.

Why Happy Customers Matter

It may seem obvious, but if people are satisfied with your product, they're more likely to stick around. They're more likely to buy your Internet-connected smart watch and probably less likely to spring $1500 for a pair of goofy-looking cyborg glasses.

Crucially, all those satisfied customers will be less inclined to follow in the footsteps of Robert Scoble and Guy Kawasaki and Andy Ihnatko make the switch to Android the next time their carrier contract is up. Android may activate a huge number of devices every day, but Apple is doing a better job of keeping each of those new customers happy, and thus is more likely to retain them in the long run. 

Of course, Scoble and Kawasaki are geeks. And lots of geeks love Android for its customizability, looser app restrictions and integration with Google's most indispensable services. When J.D. Power and Associates looks at customer satisfaction, they're trying to gauge a much broader sample of the general population. 

Geeks Out

To be sure, Android devices have improved steadily. Just look at the Nexus line of gadgets. It's no wonder some of Apple's biggest high profile fans are thinking twice. But when it comes to how satisfied customers are in general, Apple still leads the pack.

It's plain to see why: Whereas Google has been fine-tuning its user experience and its hardware partners are pushing out more and more impressive devices, iOS has been super-polished and tightly integrated with the hardware since the beginning. The experience is incredibly intuitive and mostly pleasant. It makes sense that the average consumer adores it. 

This isn't to say that there aren't threats to Apple's dominance in this realm as well. Newer Android devices are getting bulletproof reviews and of course, Apple let its customers down big time with Maps. Apple will have to work hard to hang onto this title. But for the time being, the iPhone is still the most beloved smartphone on the market.

Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison seldom shies away from a fight, so it's no surprise his company came out swinging over an unfavorable Forrester Research report.

Forrester certainly struck a nerve when it released a survey on Wednesday that found a majority of customers using Oracle's e-Business Suite, PeopleSoft and Siebel business applications had no interest in switching to the company's next-generation Fusion Applications. Those laggards are complicating Oracle's efforts to reverse a slowdown in application revenue, Forrester said.

Oracle's Response

In a three-page counterattack, Oracle tore into the market-research firm. "This is a speculative note based on misconceptions and wrong hypotheses," the company thundered.

(See also "Why Oracle Fusion Doesn't Excite Customers")

Despite Oracle's ostensible outrage, its counterattack is unconvincing. The company claims Forrester did not talk to enough of its customers to back its claims, as if the firm was doing a random survey of all of Oracle's customers.

Forrester never said it was doing that kind of survey. Instead, the respondents came from 180 of the firm's contacts that were responsible for choosing IT products and had knowledge of Oracle applications. "While nonrandom, the survey is still a valuable tool for understanding where users are today and where the industry is headed," the report says.

Commonsense would tell you that there are more reasons for Oracle customers to stay with the applications they have than to move to Fusion, which has a different code base. Such an undertaking is expensive, takes a long time and draws IT staff away from other pressing projects. With the older applications still being upgraded and working just fine, why would anyone want to make a major change?

(See the full text of its rebuttal below.)

The most damaging part of the survey was Forrester's finding that 65% of customers using the older business applications had no plans to switch to Fusion. Another 24% were on the fence.

Oracle complained that the survey only covered U.S. and European customers. Likewise, it noted that more than 40% of the respondents were in manufacturing, government, education and healthcare – industries it claims aren't representative of Oracle's overall customer base. For instance, Oracle cited an IDC report noting that Fusion doesn't yet fully support manufacturing operations, implying that manufacturers might reasonably be less than interested in making the switch to immature applications.

Ellison and company also moaned that many questions were phrased in a "negative way," as if that somehow disqualified the responses. Such questions included "What do you dislike most about your firm's most important Oracle applications?" and "Why doesn't your firm plan to use Oracle Fusion Applications?"

Who Do You Believe?

The report also claimed that Oracle has no clear strategy for migrating customers to Fusion. The company disagreed, saying it has always told customers they could adopt pieces of the product portfolio at their own pace and that everything – old and new – would work together.

Forrester also said that customers staying with the older applications were missing out on innovation. Again Oracle cried foul, saying that at Oracle OpenWorld last year, the company discussed future releases for E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft, as well as roadmaps for all its applications. Examples of innovation include iPad certification in PeopleSoft and new mobile capabilities in Siebel, Oracle said.

Despite Oracle's protestations, Forrester is not budging. "We stand by the report," spokesman Phil LeClare said. So, readers will have to decide whom they believe. Personally, given Oracle's recent lack of truth in advertising and its tendency to pretend to have cloud technology when it doesn't, I'll lean toward Forrester.

Here's the full Oracle rebuttal:

Image courtesy of drserg/Shutterstock.