The most recent articles from CRN

Exclusive: Bell Micro EMEA confims job cuts

Sara Yirrell — 2008-11-21T12:47:00.000Z

Sara Yirrell, CRN, Friday 21 November 2008 at 12:47:00

Distributor looking to make cost savings of 10 per cent across the business

Bell Micro has confirmed that it is cutting jobs across its EMEA organisation, mainly in the UK and Germany, as part of its strategic goal to reduce costs by 10 per cent.

The distributor has become the latest in a line of major distribution players to make staff redundant in preparation for a tough year ahead.

Speaking to CRN, John Toal, president of Bell Micro EMEA, said: “We are going through a cost saving programme this week and next. We are looking to reduce costs through a mix of people and operating expenses.”

He confirmed all the job cuts will have happened by the end of next week.

Although he was unable to reveal the exact number of jobs being cut, Toal said the distributor was trying to avoid making sales people redundant and instead save costs from back office cuts.

In terms of geography, the majority of the cuts would come from Germany - where the market is “challenged” - and the UK.

“It is not a pleasant situation but it is better to act quickly and then be able to focus positively on the rest of the quarter,” he said. “You have to move quickly. If you don’t, you will have issues next year. Virtually every industry is going through this so it is no great surprise.”

However Toal said despite the job losses, the distributor is still confident on growing areas of the business in 2009, particularly its software division, and also expanding into other verticals.

CRN also understands that a number of jobs have been lost Bell’s US headquarters, with further restructuring scheduled for the end of the month.

DNS Arrow prepares to reward top performers

Sara Yirrell — 2008-11-21T12:10:00.000Z

Sara Yirrell , CRN, Friday 21 November 2008 at 12:10:00

As market conditions worsen, distributor vows to invest in loyal partners

DNS Arrow is taking a tougher stance on its reseller base, pledging to plough resources into those partners that offer return on investment.

The distributor revealed how it will be sifting through all of its 7,000-strong reseller base and deepening its relationships with its top 600 partners.

Steve Pearce, managing director of DNS Arrow, said: “We have to place our bets on the winners. We want and intend to focus our energy and resources on those partners that are most important to us. We cannot afford to waste resources on

those that only want to deal with us occasionally.”

However, Pearce insisted that the distributor is still keen to work with its entire base.

“We are definitely not going to ignore the rest of them,” he said.

“We have several thousand customers that periodically buy from us, so we will be looking at managing them on a more limited service-level agreement and pushing the small-value, high-transaction business to a more automated system.”

However, vendors are also in the spotlight if their products cannot add value to DNS Arrow’s existing offering, they will not be included in its line-up, Pearce added.

The distributor is investing heavily in helping its partners to drive business by launching a series of step-by-step, how-to-sell guides to its technology that partners can use as sales tools. The first is on virtualisation, and the firm is also working on a security guide.

“We do not want to lose sight of the distributor’s job, which is to stock product and supply it, but to develop the business we have to get creative and focus our resources,” said Pearce.

Alastair Edwards, senior analyst at Canalys, said that the strategy makes complete sense.

“I can see the logic in this for a company like DNS Arrow, which has a relatively high cost of sale compared to the broadliners.

I think we are going to see a lot more of this happening as distributors start to tighten their belts.”

Hills leads overhaul at Trustmarque

Doug Woodburn — 2008-11-21T12:07:00.000Z

Doug Woodburn, CRN, Friday 21 November 2008 at 12:07:00

Chief executive expected to unveil a new strategy

Software VAR Trustmarque is drawing up plans to change its business model under the direction of interim chief executive Ken Hills.

Hills arrived from Trustmarque’s financial backer Lloyds TSB Development Group (LDC) at the beginning of November following the departure of Ross Miller (Channelweb, 10 November). He is set to unveil a revised strategy in January.

Hills told CRN: “LDC remains supportive of the business. There are no plans to sell. This will be about growing the business and getting back to the original business plan.”

Trustmarque set itself a £200m revenue goal at the time of its 2006 management buy-out (MBO), but recent financial results show the Microsoft large account reseller (LAR) has fallen short of expectations.

However, Trustmarque sales director Tim Dickens claimed the reseller is still in solid shape.

“We have just come off the back of a record year, in both sales and margin return. We were not delivering the investor value in terms of what it was thought the business might do at the time of the MBO.”

Meanwhile, Stuart Fenton, chief executive at Insight Enterprises, denied the corporate reseller was interested in buying Trustmarque.

“I can categorically state this is untrue. We are focused on our own business and our recent acquisitions,” Fenton said.

Steve Reynolds, managing director of LAR Civica Direct, said: “Every LAR is looking to see how their direction might change now and whether or not they can get someone who knows the industry at the helm.”

Bell offers SME VARs increased credit terms

Sam Trendall — 2008-11-21T10:18:00.000Z

Sam Trendall, CRN, Friday 21 November 2008 at 10:18:00

Distributor gives VAR a 15-day increase in credit terms and bolsters credit lines by as much as 100 per cent

Distributor Bell Micro is offering a helping hand to smaller VARs by giving them extended credit terms and increased credit lines.

The company is sending a letter to several hundred selected SMB resellers next week informing them credit terms are to be extended from 30 to 45 days if they agree to pay by Direct Debit. The letter also states that, owing to the twice a month frequency with which Direct Debit payments may be taken in some cases, VARs could end up benefiting from a 45 to 52 day payment term in which to pay the distributor. To take advantage of the offer, Bell Micro requires a completed Direct Debit mandate.

Some resellers being offered the extended credit terms will also enjoy increased credit lines with the distributor. VARs utilising 100 per cent or more of their credit line will have it doubled, while those using between 50 and 75 per cent will be given a 75 per cent increase. VARs utilising 40 to 50 per cent will be given a 50 per cent increase and those using between 30 and 40 per cent will have their credit line raised by a quarter.

In the letter, director of credit Eddie Pacey tells recipients: "The reality, by and large, is that trade credit in the channel is more than ample. What we offer you today carries greater weight and, in today’s climate, a tangible benefit to your business."

Pacey told CRN: “This is a selective chosen band of SME clients with credit lines of up to £50,000 currently. I am not an advocate of limit accelerator programmes as these frequently place undue strain on the reseller to utilise a specified percentage in order to continue the upward climb. This is an effort to assist some of our SME clients in managing their cash a little easier”

Avnet looks forward to 2009

Sara Yirrell — 2008-11-21T10:00:00.000Z

Sara Yirrell, CRN, Friday 21 November 2008 at 10:00:00

Chief executive Roy Vallee reveals why the distributor is confident of riding out the storm

Avnet chief executive Roy Vallee is feeling confident for 2009, despite the looming clouds of recession over the industry.

Speaking to CRN, Vallee said the global distributor has shrewdly been “improving its return on capital” and concentrating on its credit rating, rather than falling into the credit trap, which stands it in good stead to emerge even stronger from the other side of the storm.

“All the while people were asking us why we were doing that, and ‘who cares about credit rating?’” he said. “But now is the time that access to the credit market is key.”

“Broadly speaking, distribution has done pretty well,” he added. “There has been more attention paid to the right financial metrics and the inventory management processes are as good as they have been. Companies are being much better managed. Overall we as an industry have come a long way.

“Coming into 2009, there will be some players that are either small and don’t have the wherewithal or good access to credit markets, and some that fell into the same trap as the banks. There are many in the channel that have listened to the siren song of credit and have not thought about the consequences or what if,” he said.

He added that the distributor would not be ruling out further acquisition in both developed and developing markets, and would be working with its wide vendor base next year to extend relationships into new geographies and verticals.

For the full interview with Vallee on Avnet's plans for next year – see CRN, 8 December issue.

Britannic event offers taste of convergence

Sam Trendall — 2008-11-20T12:36:00.000Z

Sam Trendall, CRN, Thursday 20 November 2008 at 12:36:00

VAR event presents new opportunities

VAR Britannic Technologies has hailed its fifth annual Convergence Summit a success and has claimed a number of new business opportunities came from the event.

The seminar took place earlier this month at Mercedes Benz World in Surrey and was attended by about 260 end users.

Representatives from vendors, including Mitel, Avaya, Cisco, Global Crossing and Sun Microsystems spoke at the event, as well as Britannic Technologies’ sales and marketing director Jonathan Sharp.

He said attendees were made up of an even split of existing and potential Britannic customers.

“There was a lot of interest in unified communications (UC) and what it means to people,” he said.

He added that green issues were another dominant theme at the event and that they had become prevalent in businesses’ buying criteria.

“Reducing carbon footprint and power use is on the radar, especially in the public sector,” he said.

Rob Bamforth, principal analyst at Quocirca, said the human touch is important when selling new converged technologies.

“Getting people to work together using this technology is the training message that needs to come into play in the UC space,” he said. “That is an opportunity for the channel.”

VARs offered marketing lift

Sam Trendall — 2008-11-20T11:56:00.000Z

Sam Trendall, CRN, Thursday 20 November 2008 at 11:56:00

Outsourcing touted as a money-saving marketing model

Two IT marketing firms have joined forces to encourage VARs to save money by embracing an outsourced marketing model.

Print and online specialist SO Marketing and telemarketing-focused EST Marketing have teamed up to offer resellers a

Marketing Manager package for £1,500 a month. The service offers telemarketing, email work, print offerings, web site design and use of CRM tools.

SO managing director James Aberley told CRN that outsourced marketing was an appealing option in the current economic climate. “I cannot think of any company we deal with that has created a new marketing role this year, yet there are many that have not replaced departing marketing managers,” he said.

“Our package is designed to be a cost-effective offering for a much lower monthly fee than you would pay in a salary.”

EST’s operations manager Mike Starnes added: “Revenue demands on sales teams have remained the same. They need to generate more leads to hit their targets and safeguard revenues.”

Aberley revealed he hopes to sign up to 30 VARs in the next six months and ultimately wanted to create higher-end packages for larger resellers and vendors.

Bearing the brunt

Andrew Scott — 2008-11-20T11:46:00.000Z

Andrew Scott, CRN, Thursday 20 November 2008 at 11:46:00

Service providers must consider contractual obligations in the face of unexpected events

This year the London Stock Exchange (LSE) suffered its worst systems failure in eight years on what might have been one of the busiest trading days of the year. Connectivity problems meant trading was suspended for seven hours.

The incident shook London’s claim as financial capital of the world; billions of pounds of business were left undone. Meanwhile, rival New York’s stock exchange saw its third-highest trading day ever.

Who was to blame, considering the LSE has some statutory immunity from liability?

Technology has become increasingly vital in stock exchanges as automated trading programs replace the old system of orders taken over telephone or shouted in the pit. Timing is key, as traders expect to complete their orders within milliseconds.

The UK Financial Services Authority states that the risk of such infrastructure failures will grow proportionally with

the rise of electronic trading and straight-through processing.

Who is most able – the supplier or the customer – to bear the risk of major losses through technical incidents?

To a degree, parties to a contract are free to allocate the risk of loss, for instance through service levels, describing the types of recoverable loss, and excluding or limiting one party’s liability. The law of damages also allocates risk, according to a rule that loss is only recoverable if caused by the breach and by prescribing the degree and amount of compensation.

Statutory immunity aside, contractual and legal rules make it very difficult to claim for trading losses from a major IT outage.

It may be impossible even to quantify the loss, let alone prove that the outage was the cause, and a supplier may exclude

liability for trading losses in any event.

Generally, this works efficiently. Customers are typically more able to manage the risk of disruption, by finding alternative means of trading, and imposing trading losses on the supplier of the network invariably results in disproportionate risk compared to the return on investment.

However, with a restricted source of supply – as with the LSE – users do not have much choice. So competition is to be

welcomed. Although excessive competition may result in costly multiple networks, market forces should improve things.

Anticipating problems, though, can make a difference. Maintaining pressure on IT-based platforms is crucial.

Careful attention can stop incidents interfering with normal processes. It might be impossible to eradicate the unexpected, but it is prudent to prepare for any eventuality.

Andrew Scott is a partner at UK top 50 law firm Dickinson Dees LLP

Shanghai draws praise from system builders

Nick Booth — 2008-11-20T11:41:00.000Z

Nick Booth, CRN, Thursday 20 November 2008 at 11:41:00

AMD’s latest core-processor model offers improved features and is welcomed by integrator community

System builders have responded positively to Shanghai, the code name for AMD’s latest core-processor model with many saying it is far better than the previous Barcelona platform.

AMD has promised Shanghai will be the best platform for virtualisation performance and easy live migration. But following disappointment with Barcelona, many system builders questioned whether the new 45nm design could produce the industry’s fastest stable x86 server platform architecture so far.

Global OEMs are expected to immediately offer enterprise and SME customers more than 25 systems, available between now and the end of the year, based on the 45nm quad-core AMD Opteron processor.

The main improvements are expected to be the 45nm process, an improved prefetch, increased and improved caching, faster virtualisation and a new energy-efficient, cache-saving feature called Smart Fetch.

Subhas Patel, managing director of system builder Satine Interactive said that, despite being a “shrunken version” of the Barcelona chip (down from 65nm), the Opteron is solid.

Randy Allen, senior vice president at AMD’s computing solutions group, added: “Opteron gives the most dramatic performance and performance-per-watt increases for AMD products for four years.”

Though AMD is overshadowed by Intel, it leads on virtualisation, said Patel. The biggest improvement AMD has achieved is in shortening the switch time on virtual machines. This could have massive benefits for companies that use virtualisation to host multiples of different systems, he claimed.

If every virtual machine’s switch time is improved by a quarter, the ramifications for the entire server are massive, explained chief technology officer of web host Strato, Julien Ardisson.

Berlin-based Strato is the earliest adopter of Opteron, with new servers using the new Opteron processors. The processors give more processing power per watt, said Ardisson, and the energy intake adjusts to the load on the processors.

“These processors perform well while using little energy. We will have no trouble switching to the new server generation.”

Realtime puts its head in the clouds

Nick Booth — 2008-11-20T11:37:00.000Z

Nick Booth, CRN, Thursday 20 November 2008 at 11:37:00

Cloud security services are the way forward, claim distributor

System builders should forget about installing security software on clients’ machines and get their head in the clouds, distributor Realtime advised last week.

The components specialist is offering its partners an in-the-cloud security service and has signed a contract to distribute F-Secure’s technology for fighting cyber crime.

Software-as-a-service is not a classic offering for a hardware distributor, but times are changing, argued Richard Marsden, sales director of Realtime.

System builders need to keep coming up with something new, he said, and that can be confusing. “F-Secure offers real innovation and leading technology,” said Marsden. “Its 2009 version, which is available for OEM and retail, fits our customer profile perfectly.”

F-Secure uses object reputation analysis to combat fraud and malware before it even reaches the client.

It argues that the internet security industry needs the speed and power provided by cloud computing to be able to respond to the exponentially growing volume of cyber crime. Why neutralise the processing power of a PC, said Marsden, when you can outsource this activity?

The firm also develops cloud computing and reputation-based services using the power of end-user systems and collaborative intelligence.

F-Secure launched its real-time protection network in September. DeepGuard 2.0 will combine local analysis of a user’s programme behaviour with the use of a real-time protection network. This identifies good and bad software and collates intelligence.

With the threat to users changing by the day, normal packaged security cannot cope with the amorphous malware monster that surrounds them, argued Pirkka Palomäki, chief technology officer of F-Secure.

“Our protection network is based on cloud computing and designed to support a bigger range of security services than just anti-virus,” he said.

SonicWall lifts partners with subscription tool

Doug Woodburn — 2008-11-20T11:32:00.000Z

Doug Woodburn, CRN, Thursday 20 November 2008 at 11:32:00

Percs tool will enhance recurring revenue model by alerting VARs to expiring subscription services

SonicWall has equipped its UK resellers with a new subscription renewal tool, as recurring revenues begin to generate the lion’s share of its turnover.

The security vendor used its recent UK partner conference to unveil Partner-Enabled Renewal of Customer Subscriptions (Percs), which alerts resellers to subscription services that are about to expire.

Percs has already been launched in the US, where it has been credited with boosting subscription renewal rates to 80 per cent.

Speaking to CRN, Keith Bird, vice president of EMEA at SonicWall, said 150 of the vendor’s 1,200 active partners had attended the event.

“Fifty per cent of our business is from subscription services now and 50 per cent is from appliances, so it is key to ensure that companies renew when their subscriptions expire,” he said.

SonicWall is offering to pursue smaller renewals itself if the partner thinks the cost of sale is too high, before passing the margin to partners.

“Many of our partners do not have the tools or the people in place to ensure every company renews after the year or two years ends. This ensures they will not miss any opportunities. When they want, we can do it on their behalf and they will still get margin,” said Bird.

He added SonicWall is enjoying an annual growth rate of 25 to 30 per cent in the UK and Europe – three times faster than the overall market.

The vendor has 1,200 active UK partners, where it works through distributors Sphinx, Bell Micro, Tekdata and Azlan.

Steve Browell, general manager of the security division for Europe at Bell, said Percs could help to re-ignite dormant customers.

“This will mean customers will be touched more frequently. They will start to hear about new products that are launching and may get back on the spending trail, rather than just renewing what they already have,” he said.

Bird added that SonicWall is launching new marketing tools aimed at taking c hannel support to “the next level beyond classic marketing development fund activity”.

The vendor has taken on agency Gazing Performance, which will act as an outsourced marketing department for partners lacking in-house capabilities.

Bird said the vendor now invests 70 per cent of all its marketing dollars through the channel.

Andrew Shepperd, managing director of Azlan, also welcomed the improvements SonicWall had made.

“SonicWall has a quality offering that seems to attract a loyal partner base, particularly in the SME sector,” he said.

Start me up

Fleur Doidge — 2008-11-20T10:52:00.000Z

Fleur Doidge, CRN, Thursday 20 November 2008 at 10:52:00

It is ideal to be a new technology venture in these turbulent times, Fleur Doidge finds

Agile technology start-ups with innovative online business models may be well placed to weather a downturn, according to eight UK start-ups who spoke at a Sun Microsystems partner roundtable held recently in London.

Jake Stride, founder and chief executive officer at online sales and contact management provider Tactile CRM, said start-ups can be best placed to make it through today’s economic climate.

“There are positives and negatives. It is a fantastic time for people, but you have to be clever about what you do. We would be a bit leaner in the way that we work,” he said.

Economic pressures in themselves help companies lift their game. On top of that, small start-up companies are often more nimble than larger, well-established ones.

Looking for value

“Large companies are already starting to lay people off. But we can retool and repurpose people a bit more quickly and move things forward that way. It is very difficult for them,” said Stride.

Tactile CRM is doing well, with more customers signing up in recent months. Organisations are increasingly looking for better ways to manage their salesforces and contacts, according to Stride.

“This sort of CRM thing is quite a good area to be in, one that people are really starting to think about,” he said.

Ricky Doyle, director and co-founder of on-demand online training platform developer Practice-IT, said his experience is that most companies are looking for better value for money from services they adopt.

“The difficulty from our side is being known as the alternative,” he said.

Practice-IT has the technology that is wanted and the platform available, but selling it into companies that are reluctant to spend is tricky.

However, the company has a good sales proposition and still expects good results, he said.

Targeted transformation

“Budgets are being cut, but you cannot stop training. For us, the downturn is bittersweet,” said Doyle.

Stride said potential customers are contacting them, but they want to talk about particular topics of concern.

“They want to talk about what works and what does not, what works for business-to-consumer (B2C) and does not work for business-to-business (B2B) and vice versa.”

Whether a customer is B2C or B2B can affect the suitability and appeal of services or solutions offered.

“When we started up, getting user requests for our beta was difficult because we were asking people to load up their data on the web. B2C is easier to do,” he said.

Nick Halstead, founder and chief executive officer of RSS reader maker Favorit, said most start-ups do not have to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Simon Grice, representative for BeLocal, a search venture slated for launch in early 2009, agreed. He said that start-ups have a better chance than most to surf the highs and lows of any boom-to-bust cycle.

“Start-ups have a unique opportunity because mature companies are cutting marketing spend in a downturn,” he said.

Emerging companies can and should seize the opportunity to expand. And because they are starting up, they will be marketing themselves regardless of the economic circumstance.

“Mature companies often cut marketing first because it is easy. When the back-end is in fact where inefficiencies should be cut,” said Grice. “You need to focus on the business, but not stop bringing in customers and revenues.”

Stride said that some companies do too much marketing and others already have very efficient back-ends and processes.

Also, it contradicted the old adage that you should up-sell to existing customers rather than try to attract new ones.

“I am saying that if you have a choice, do not cut the marketing,” Grice answered.

Ben Summers, technical director at online collaboration, document management and CRM developer OneIS, noted that companies with an online product can target the online community as customers more easily online than through newspapers and the like. Tech-savvy customers are likely to spread your message virally to more traditional customers.

“You are often targeting the online early adopters. And people talk to them and ask them, ‘What do you use? What should I use?’,” added Summers.

Pow wow, here and now

Fleur Doidge — 2008-11-20T10:46:00.000Z

Fleur Doidge, CRN, Thursday 20 November 2008 at 10:46:00

Calls for videoconferencing are getting louder as resellers speak out for an army of adopters

Organisations seeking to cut costs are accelerating their adoption of videoconferencing technologies, according to vendors.

Kris Davies, managing director at Reading AV distributor Beyondis, said videoconferencing sales have grown 400 per cent by volume this year.

Also, he is seeing a huge shift from videoconferencing being a corporate and public sector opportunity to having appeal for SMEs.

A year ago, just 20 per cent of customers were SMEs, but now smaller companies make up about 60 per cent of Beyondis’ videoconferencing customer base, said Davies.

Money talks

Last year, the big driver in videoconferencing adoption was green issues, but cost-savings are becoming the most important factor.

“No one is talking green when they are trying to keep their jobs, but they are talking about saving money,” said Davies.

Smaller companies are getting real cost savings from deploying videoconferencing. And because small numbers of large deals are

giving way to larger numbers of small opportunities, more resellers are getting a look-in, he said.

“You no longer have to be in the FTSE 100 to afford the stuff,” he added.

The cost of kit is coming down as vendors such as LifeSize work to cap prices while delivering increased, even high-definition (HD), quality.

Videoconferencing links are being put in to save on domestic travel costs as well, said Davies. It used to be all about offices putting room-based links between London, New York and Hong Kong, but now they are just as likely to be connecting Slough, Birmingham and Manchester.

Increasingly, videoconferencing is being put in for low-cost, direct-to-the-desktop purposes, instead of into purpose-built rooms. Again, that has accelerated return-on-investment and lowered the barrier to adoption, said Davies.

Terry Dwyer, managing director of London managed network service provider Mvision, said another option for delivering cost-effective videoconferencing to all sizes of customer is providing it as a managed service.

The VAR has found that even large customers that can afford to invest in their own infrastructure often can do so without managing and supporting it themselves.

Savvy resellers with an armoury of service options can bundle the kit as a managed offering that provides recurring revenues.

The right packages are finding favour across many business types and sizes. “We package it to enable rapid delivery without any fuss,” he said. “And we are very interested in the SME space.”

Mvision uses videoconferencing by Tandberg for customers from SMEs to enterprise level. According to Dwyer, Tandberg gear is quick and easy to deploy, although it does take time for resellers to get up

to speed.

“Video will become mainstream. Integration to the desktop also is going to be very important in the next couple of years, so we are seeing good growth,” he said.

“Our business model is to double each year and we are on track to do above that this year, in profit terms.”

While videoconferencing deployment does require specific skills, many technical people in communications or IP have parallel training that can help them adapt swiftly to the emerging technology’s needs, said Dwyer.

“The skilling up is not very difficult and we run a comprehensive training system,” he said.

Going for growth

Wayne Stephens, vice president of EMEA partners and alliances at Tandberg, agreed the videoconferencing market is growing, with desktop deployments particularly strong.

“If firms deploy videoconferencing in rooms, they are finding that those rooms become very busy. And then they become frustrated because they cannot get in to do a simple video call because the room is always in use,” said Stephens.

This has the knock-on effect of encouraging organisation decision-makers to look into providing videoconferencing at desktop level. With the Microsoft development of an HD-ready webcam for PCs, that trend will only intensify, he said.

“But the largest growth happening right now is infrastructure,” he added.

Bob Leggio, vice president of the telepresence division at US-based telepresence provider Telanetix, said there are numerous opportunities for resellers. Telanetix provides videoconferencing kits that work out of the box or can be customised. It works with distributor Imago in the UK.

Resellers can wrap a whole portfolio of offerings around videoconferencing or telepresence kit, such as room furniture in different colours or styles to suit different locations and managed services or support, he said.

“In the US, we have 35,000 resellers leveraging this imaging technology and deploying it, because we make it simple to deploy,” Leggio claimed.

All light on the night

Fleur Doidge and Sara Yirrell — 2008-11-20T10:40:00.000Z

Fleur Doidge and Sara Yirrell, CRN, Thursday 20 November 2008 at 10:40:00

The Channel Awards 2008 was a slap-up affair of champagne, bright lights and fancy footwork for over 1,700 of CRN’s closest contacts. Sara Yirrell and Fleur Doidge report

The 15th CRN Channel Awards at Battersea Park Events Arena was the scene of much jubilation as the lucky – and hardworking – winners collected their awards.

With more than 1,750 people attending the black-tie event this year, the CRN team was proud that so many people forgot the economic pressures on them for one evening and turned out to celebrate a night of success.

There was a slight change to the layout of the venue this year, with a mezzanine level introduced for the first time, giving all guests a good view of the main room before the formal part of the evening began.

The charity of the evening was the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Defibrillator Appeal, which is aiming to raise £300,000 to place much-needed defibrillators in tube stations across London.

A silent auction was also run in aid of the BHF appeal, with four VIP tickets to Aston Villa versus Portsmouth as the prize.

CRN editor Sara Yirrell made a brief speech before guests tucked into a three-course meal.

Guest host was comedian Jimmy Carr, who entertained the audience with his dry wit during his after-dinner speech, before launching into the main business of the evening – the awards ceremony itself.

Bill Allan, UK sales director at headline sponsor OKI Printing Solutions thought the event was excellent.

“I was impressed with the venue, the professional organisation, plus the behind-the-scenes efforts and the overwhelming attendance from both vendors and resellers. It was great to celebrate such positive achievements with so many key decision-makers and influencers,” he said.

Julia Lunn, channel marketing manager at Lexmark, agreed. “I think it’s a really good forum for all the channel to get together and network on an informal basis.”

Going out with a gong

Outstanding channel players are still rising to the top against tough times and fiercer competition. CRN’s team of hand-picked and diligent judges found it harder than ever to pick the crème de la crème from the 250 that made it past the initial cull.

No less than 24 glass trophies and eight specially designed Judges’ Commended certificates were given out on the night. These awards will spark memories of 2008 long after the sharp suits and glitzy frocks are pushed to the back of the wardrobe.

Systems Vendor of the Year for 2008 was HP, with HP Procurve taking home the Networking Vendor of the Year Award.

Dave Poskett, director of the Solution Partner organisation at HP, said the CRN Channel Awards is one of the most prestigious award events in the industry.

“As always, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, which provided us with an opportunity to celebrate another great year with our partners. I would like to thank them for their continued support,” he said.

Winning both proves HP’s investment in the channel through its Preferred Partner Programme has had a positive effect, said Poskett.

Bell Micro also took two trophies: Systems Distributor of the Year and Software Distributor of the Year.

The first of the evening’s Judges’ Commended prizes went to Enfield-based Interactive Ideas in the Software Distributor category.

Not unsurprisingly, Microsoft fought off a challenge from VMware and a number of smaller, homegrown software developers to take the Software Vendor of the Year prize.

Specialist Vendor of the Year for 2008 was Kingston Technology. A Specialist Vendor of the Year Judges’ Commended certificate went to IT support services provider Comms-care. Richard Eglon, marketing managing at Comms-care, said: “These awards continue to be the premium event at which everyone wants to be. Even though we haven’t won first place, to be recognised for all our hard work by the judges is just as good. We are delighted.”

SME reseller of the Year went to WStore for the second year running.

Stewart Hayward, commercial director at Wstore, joked: “We won for the second time. But we have been shortlisted every year for nine years, so only winning twice is not good enough really.”

Hayward said that key to winning is getting everyone to vote for you, and starting the campaign for votes in plenty of time.

“The event itself was a great improvement on last year – I have been here every year for the eight or nine years. When it is involved with a charity or a decent brand that people know is current, it is often a better year. This is a better setup than last year too,” Hayward said.

This year’s Battersea Park Events Arena offered an improved layout that encouraged more mingling among attendees, he added.

Storage Vendor of the Year was Symantec, and the leading distributor of storage was Hammer. A storage distribution commendation went to CMS Peripherals.

Security, like storage, is an ongoing area of opportunity and is always a hot topic in CRN. After careful consideration, the judging panel voted Computerlinks as the Security Distributor of the Year, and Global Secure Systems (GSS) the Security Reseller of the Year.

David Hobson, managing director of GSS, said: “This is vindication of the work we are trying to achieve delivering information assurance, from the sales guys through to the consultants. I am really pleased so many clients are here with us to validate our win.”

Security Vendor of the Year was Trend Micro. Paul Anderson, UK and Ireland sales director at Trend Micro, said: “Tonight showed we are passionate about what we do.”

A Judges’ Commended certificate was also awarded in the security distribution category and Woking-based veteran Wick Hill was the lucky recipient.

Wick Hill chief Ian Kilpatrick also took home the channel Personality of the Year Award.

Editor’s Choice Emerging Company of the Year, personally selected by CRN editor Sara Yirrell, was technology infrastructure specialist ANS Group.

Scott Fletcher, managing director of ANS, said: “We were bowled over. This award is real recognition from the industry.”

Corporate Reseller of the Year for 2008 was IT services and solution provider Softcat. David Simpson, commercial director at the reseller, said: “It was another awesome evening. It is great to be recognised for our hard work and commitment to our vendors and customers. Softcat is proud to be a winner.”

The Corporate Reseller of the Year Judges’ Commended Award was given to Computacenter.

Computer 2000 also took home two awards: Networking Distributor of the Year and the much-coveted Distributor of the Year.

However, a worthy runner up in the Distributor of the Year category was specialist player VARlink, which also polled a high number of votes.

And the winners are:

Systems Vendor of the Year: HP

Systems Distributor of the Year: Bell Micro

Storage Vendor of the Year: Symantec

Storage Distributor of the Year: Hammer

Storage Distributor of the Year Judges’ Commended: CMS Peripherals

Specialist Vendor of the Year: Kingston Technology

Specialist Vendor of the Year Judges’ Commended: Comms-care

Software Distributor of the Year: Bell Micro

Software Distributor of the Year Judges’ Commended: Interactive Ideas

Specialist Reseller of the Year: Intercept

Software Vendor of the Year: Microsoft

Specialist Distributor of the Year: Midwich

Specialist Distributor of the Year Judges’ Commended: Man & Machine

SME Reseller of the Year: WStore

Security Distributor of the Year: Computerlinks

Security Distributor of the Year Judges’ Commended: Wick Hill

Security Reseller of the Year: Global Secure Systems

Security Vendor of the Year: Trend Micro

Networking Distributor of the Year: Computer 2000/Azlan

Networking Reseller of the Year: SICL

Networking Vendor of the Year - HP Procurve

Integrator of the Year: Blue Chip

Integrator of the Year Judges’ Commended: Ramesys

Corporate Reseller of the Year: Softcat

Corporate Reseller of the Year Judges’ Commended: Computacenter

Distributor of the Year: Computer 2000

Distributor of the Year Judges’ Commended: Varlink

Reseller of the Year: BT Basilica

Reseller of the Year Judges’ Commended: Intrinsic Technology

Vendor of the Year: EMC

Emerging Company of the Year: ANS Group

Personality of the Year: Ian Kilpatrick, Wick Hill

Nice guys finish last

Sara Yirrell — 2008-11-20T10:27:00.000Z

Sara Yirrell, CRN, Thursday 20 November 2008 at 10:27:00

Sara Yirrell dances with the issue of nice companies

I have a confession to make.

I am an avid fan of Strictly Come Dancing and watch it religiously each week. If I am out, I will record it and watch it as soon as possible.

Last weekend was a travesty of justice in my opinion with a great dancer, Cherie Lungi, being kicked off, and political journalist John Sergeant, who let’s face it cannot dance for toffee, was

carried through to the next round on a wave of public support.

However last week he slightly ruined the tone of my column by dropping out three days before the next dance off. Fair play to him though he had to go.

Believe it or not there is an analogy here for the channel.

This week two major channel players Oracle and DNS Arrow have pledged to plough resources into their top-performing partners. Those that can stay light on their feet and provide return on investment are the ones that win the votes.

Unfortunately, those firms that still have a slightly clunky and perhaps less coordinated business model, will be left to fend for themselves as the difficult times begin to bite. Being a ‘nice’ company just will not cut the mustard in 2009.

Analysts have said this is a trend all the main channel players will follow in the coming months.

Those firms that so far have been carried along on a wave of goodwill and luck will soon find themselves voted off the stage or forced to bow out.

Just like John Sergeant.

Sara Yirrell is editor of CRN sara.yirrell@incisivemedia.com