The long and short of the Awards
The shortlist for the 2009 Channel Awards has been announced and voting opened on7 September. Fleur Doidge introduces the competitors in the running this year
Last year's Awards saw 1,700 celebrate at Battersea Park
Some serious work for our team of judges has resulted in the Channel Awards shortlist. According to chief judge and CRN editor Sara Yirrell, the standard of entry this year has once again been higher than ever.
It took an entire morning of final deliberation by the panel of 10 judges following initial perusal and assessment between entry deadline and the judging day before the contenders in all 18 categories could be decided.
“This really was an exceptional year, with more entries than ever, so we would like to remind everyone that to have made it to the shortlist stage is a real achievement in itself,” said Yirrell.
Good luck to all those nominated. Voting began on Monday 7 September and closes on Friday 9 October 2009.
Check out the online link at the end of this article for instructions on how to vote. Time is of the essence, and to win you will need to get customers and partners to vote for you.
Some promising entries fail at the final hurdle by not canvassing their contacts and encouraging them to vote.
Just one vote will be accepted per person, and one vote per email although different people at the same company can vote. However, if a smaller company accumulates a large number of votes for its size, that will be taken into account.
Unscrupulous methods of increasing the vote count will not be tolerated; for instance, block voting is forbidden and so is using personal email addresses such as generic webmail accounts from the likes of Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail.
Only IT companies with a verifiable email address may vote, along with verifiable customers and partners. Nominees may not vote for themselves.
Yirrell and publisher Mark Burton will check each and every vote individually to ensure compliance with the rules.
Andrew Hall, marketing manager at event headline sponsor OKI Printing Solutions, said: “This will be the second year of our headline sponsorship of the CRN Channel Awards.
These awards provide us with the opportunity to engage with other top-tier resellers that may not have focused on print.”
Hall said the awards are an important way for vendors such as Oki to build and grow charitable channel relationships.
Distinguished sponsors including Acronis, Avnet, Brocade, Cohort, Computerlinks, Hammer, HP, Intel, Symantec and Trend Micro will ensure the best possible event for 2009.
The black-tie ceremony, attracting about 1,700 channel champions from across the UK, will be held on Thursday 19 November at the Battersea Evolution arena in London’s Battersea Park.
Yirrell said the competition for Awards is proving exciting.
“I must urge shortlisted companies to get busy by encouraging voting. This is critical,” she added. “Firms very deserving of an award have previously missed out by simply not getting the votes.”
To vote, go to www.channelawards.net/shortlist.asp.
For more details and to book a table, email Lucy Tarbard at lucy.tarbard@ incisivemedia.com or telephone 020 7316 9158.