Winners and boozers at the Channel Awards

Highlights of the 2002 Channel Awards, and the upcoming launch of CRN's online services portal.

Congratulations to all the winners at last week's Channel Awards. I'm sure you'll agree that it was a great night and, with 1,000 people present (200 more than last year), it's clearly a must-attend event.

Although Computer 2000 (C2000) didn't have it all its own way this year, with Ingram and Ideal bagging the Hardware Distribution Partner of the Year and Storage Distribution Partner of the Year awards, C2000 picked up the coveted CRN Business Distributor of the Year award for the fourth time in a row, which is a stunning achievement.

Congratulations also to Hewlett Packard (HP), which collected three awards last week. Considering that it is still putting the finishing touches to its massive merger with Compaq, HP's hard work to ensure that partners are in the loop with its new strategy and combined channels seems to have really paid off, considering the number of votes it polled.

CRN will be covering the full story in the coming weeks. We will also post pictures at www.crn.vnunet.com, so take a peek. Maybe you'll see yourself up there, looking 'tired and emotional'.

You may also recall, through the Champagne and tequila haze, that CRN has launched its online services portal.

The aim of the site, at www.crn.vnunet.com/services, is to provide resellers with a one-stop shop for online tools and services, to help them win more business in today's tough economy.

The first offering is called the CRN Virtual Warehouse, which is provided in partnership with IT Dealer.com.

It allows resellers to view information from the UK's leading distributors. The system was originally developed by reseller Tranputec to help automate simple tasks such as ringing round distributors to check stock availability.

In the coming months CRN will roll out more services from companies such as Syscap and Graydon.