By the time this article is published, the winners of this year’s Channel Awards will have already been decided. But the decisions will not be made public until the night of the awards ceremony itself, Thursday 22 November, and until that time, speculation about who has triumphed this year will be rife.

So who will win this year? Will it be the usual crowd or will the 14th premier awards for the UK IT industry throw up some surprises?

Early indications are that voting has been strong once again, but no patterns will emerge until the votes are analysed and examined in more depth. The favourites are, as ever, the previous winners. Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC) has won the main Vendor of the Year award for the past two years - and the Systems Vendor category along with it, so must start as the front-runner again.

The firm faces stiff competition for the Systems Vendor award from its Cain Road neighbour HP and from Acer, IBM and Lenovo. Microsoft and Oracle will also be contenders - both these Thames Valley Park heavy-weights are on the shortlist for the software vendor award this year.

Similarly, Netgear seems a relatively safe bet in networking because it has, like FSC, taken the title two years in succession. In the security category, Check Point will once again be among the favourites, however the shortlist for this award is equally competitive and difficult to call, while picking a winner from the specialist shortlist is a highly daunting task.

Among the distributors, Bell Micro will be hoping to finally take the main Distributor of the Year award from Computer 2000, which has won for the past eight years. These firms will also feature in the six category awards, but so will many others such as Micro Peripherals, Westcoast, Ingram Micro, Enta Technologies and Westcon.

The specialist award is the most difficult to call and while last year’s winner Midwich will start with the shortest odds, the six companies in the running here will also have high hopes. As managing director of Midwich, Nick Culley, said: “None of the other shortlisted companies are direct competitors, but anyone who has made it this far has to be a serious contender.”

The possible winners of the reseller awards are much harder to predict and with a number of previous awards winners such as Eurodata, Equanet, PC World Business, Wstore, Ramsac and Blue Chip all in the running, it is a very open field. These companies know what it takes to win, but then again, no-one should dismiss the likes of Insight, Bytes Technology Group, SAS and Touchstone either so we could see some unexpected results this year.

What most channel people want - aside from hearing their firm’s name read out as one of the winners on the night - is to see the best performers win.

Tim Seaman, managing director of Man and Machine, which is shortlisted for the first time in the Software Distributor of the Year category, said: “We feel the most important aspect for the awards is service - closely followed by support and development.”

Peter Airs, VAR channel manager at Netgear, said that the awards are all about getting positive feedback from partners. “For us it’s all about the channel, our resellers and distributors,” he said. “If we can provide them with the tools and programmes to support and drive their business, hopefully they will appreciate this and so will the judges.”

Jon Atherton, commercial vice president at Enta Technologies, said: “Judges should recognise loyalty, development, flair and success within a certain sector.”

Atherton is also one of many well-known figures in the industry that could be among the potential winners of the Channel Personality of the Year award. Many people were unwilling to speculate on who might win the award, perhaps in the hope that they might win it themselves, however, some of the favourites include Joe Hemani of Westcoast, Gary Fowle of FSC and Karl Noakes of Microsoft.

“It would be good to see Gary Fowle nominated,” remarked one industry figure. “Chris Peacock of Gem has done pretty well this year and one of the unsung heroes of distribution is Mark Kahr of Micro-P.”

There are also very few suggestions with regards to which firm is most likely to claim the Emerging Company of the Year award.

Last year, the major contender here would certainly have been HoundDog, which put up a very strong showing in the Software Vendor of the Year category, eventually won by Microsoft.

But in a maturing market, impressive newcomers seem to be thin on the ground and while the eventual winner will probably be one of the names already on one of the shortlists, this award perhaps more than any other, is likely to spring a real surprise on the night.