Starry, starry night

Celebrate good and bad times at CRN Channel Awards 2009

The 2008 Channel Awards saw a galaxy of distributors and vendors lining up for a prize on the night. Although entering can be hard work, the rewards are most definitely in reach.

Overall distributor of the year was Computer 2000, with Varlink hot on its heels with a Judges Commended prize.

C2000 also bagged the Networking Distributor of the Year title with its subsidiary Azlan. Overall Vendor of the Year was storage mammoth EMC.

Storage vendor of the year was Symantec and top storage distributor was Hammer, pipping CMS Peripherals at the post.

However, CMS Peripherals took away a Judges Commendation instead.

It was the first year that CRN offered commendations to runners-up. The need to recognise an increasingly high standard of entrants means that once again, Judges Commendations will be up for grabs in this year’s competition.

The Channel Awards are now in their 16th year and every year, the team analyses what went well and what did not, with a view to making each Awards ceremony more satisfying for entrants than before.

“It gives us a chance to offer something of value to those who came so very close to winning an award, thus marking the hard work done,” says chair of the judging panel and CRN editor Sara Yirrell.

Congratulations were also due to HP, which won Systems Vendor of the Year, and Bell Micro for taking both the top systems and software distributor prizes, just heading off Interactive Ideas for the latter.

Tony Larks, marketing director at Trend Micro, says he “massively endorses” the Channel Awards.

“Everything we do considers the channel first, so it’s a no-brainer to be involved in the UK’s premier channel event,” Larks says.

“There are more than 20,000 resellers in the UK and it can be challenging for them to identify the right vendors or distributors with whom to partner.”

Trust in the future
Larks says resellers can simply take a quick look at CRN Channel Awards finalists and winners to get an idea of where they might dig deeper to place their trust.

“Being shortlisted is a great achievement, but only a chosen few stand out as shining industry stars and the awards recognise these companies,” he says.

Last year’s top specialist vendor was Kingston Technology, which just beat Comms-care. Specialist distributor was Midwich, with Man & Machine taking the Judges Commended gong.

Leading software, networking and security vendors were Microsoft, HP Procurve and Trend Micro, respectively.

Security Distributor of the Year in 2008 was Computerlinks, just pipping Wick Hill. Wick Hill’s head, Ian Kilpatrick, also won the Personality of the Year prize.

Anthony Norman, business group director for retail and technology research at GfK, says such events are important for the channel community in general.

“It allows the industry the opportunity to celebrate the development and achievements that have occurred over the past 12 months, it recognises those who have contributed to the development of the sector and is a chance to celebrate success ­ even in challenging times,” Norman says.

He will once again take a seat as a judge on this year’s Awards panel.

“I’m looking for products that offer a significant advantage to the user and hope that the contestants can showcase the best parts of their products or service within the entry,” he says.

Norman urges this year’s entrants to ensure they put the time and effort into their entries and highlight their firms’ unique selling points.

Now is the time to start your entry. The criteria is exactly the same as last year. Your entry must be between 300 and 1,500 words long and due to popular request, we have now included a Services Provider of the Year category.

Top names in the industry will be fighting it out ­ so make sure you book your table in time to join the fun.