Channel reveals Awards favourites

The voting is over and the decision-makers have done their stuff. It's out of your hands now, but who would you like to see stepping onto the rostrum this year? Simon Meredith asks the channel big guns for their opinions

Will it be the usual suspects or the new pretenders making their mark at this year’s Channel Awards?

Three weeks from now we will be all the wiser, but while the triumphs of the eventual winners are always well deserved, everyone has their own favourite. What everyone wants to see are the very best companies being recognised.

The major players would always seem to have the best chance of winning, but that’s not always the case. Two years ago, Kingston Technology claimed the Vendor Outstanding Achievement award, and last year Belkin won the Specialist category. While these companies are well known in the channel, they are not the biggest or the most fashionable.

This year there are some real outsiders in the vendor categories: most notably Riverbed Technology in the Networking category and HoundDog, which has been short-listed for the Software award. Both of these companies are up against stern competition this year: the former has to beat Cisco, Nortel and Mitel, as well as last year’s winner, Netgear. The latter must outshine Microsoft, Oracle and Computer Associates.

Dan May, director at Ramsac, which is one of the contenders for SME Reseller of the Year, thinks it would be healthy to see one of these firms winning a prize that is so coveted by major firms.

“I would like to see the guys at HoundDog win an award,” he said. “I think that its small team has developed a really great piece of software, which is allowing service providers such as us to really extend our range of services to clients. All of my dealings with HoundDog have been friendly and professional.”

Another company that could be considered something of an outsider in this category is Citrix. According to May, it would be an equally worthy winner.

“The Citrix investment in MDF [market development funds] is really refreshing to see,” he said. “It is renewing its support to its channel and appears to be the first vendor we’ve dealt with for a long time that is making marketing support a really attractive option.”

One of the most open and hotly contested of the awards is Specialist Vendor of the Year. Here, online service providers and ISPs are pitted against specialist hardware developers. Before the voting stage, it would have been impossible to predict a winner with any confidence.

Daniel Laws, sales director at Corporate Reseller contender Kelway, is putting his money on ITdealer.com.

“I think ITdealer.com is an innovative offering that has saved us and a number of our peers significant investment in developing bespoke solutions,” Laws said.

Alex Tatham, director of commercial products at Bell Microproducts Europe, said: “I think IT Dealer will win. It is innovative and progressive and offers an outstanding service.”

But Steve Lockie, managing director of distributor Computer 2000 (C2000), thinks that Symbol Technologies deserves to win this award.

“Specialist vendor of the year is a great category,” Lockie said. “Interestingly, my tip for next year – Symbol Technologies – is already in this year’s nominations.”

This does not mean that the three other contenders in this category – Networks First, Griffin Internet and Entanet International – can be ruled out. The Specialist categories are different in that there will be only a limited amount of cross-over between the customer bases of each of the short-listed companies.

This means that each could garner tremendous support, without compelling resellers to choose between themselves and another of their suppliers. In most categories, resellers will almost certainly deal with more than one of the contenders.

The Systems and Components and main Outstanding Achievement awards could go to a major name such as Hewlett-Packard, or the company that won both of these awards last year, Fujitsu Siemens Computers.

However, Laws said that he would prefer to see Samsung, one of the less likely players, rewarded for its efforts.

“Samsung has made a number of significant improvements to its partner programme that are worthy of some recognition,” he said.

The Storage and Security Vendor awards are too close to call without any knowledge of the voting. However, May thinks that Sophos deserves the latter.

“Sophos has made some great product developments,” he said. “From a reseller point of view, it has remained really approachable and supportive, made reselling its products easier and provides additional support and training when needed.”

While admitting having a vested interest and therefore some bias, David Ellis, director of e-security, professional services and training at Computerlinks, believes that Check Point should win the Security Vendor of the Year again.

“It has continued to give 100 per cent support to the channel in everything it does, both from a product and service sales perspective, and that’s something that cannot be said of every vendor in the sector,” Ellis claimed.

“We have seen Check Point introduce a number of new solutions to the market, increasing the opportunities for their partners, while working with distribution to furnish the channel with everything its needs to capitalise on what is still a high growth area. Also, Check Point’s authorised training programme is the best in the sector.”

But Sophos and Check Point Software are not the only runners in this race. McAfee has done a great deal of work in 2006 in building up its presence in the SME space, which has not gone unnoticed. Fortinet is also a very popular company in the security channel. SonicWall and RSA Security have their supporters and will feel they have done a good enough job to be in contention.

The Distributor awards are usually more predictable. With the continued consolidation we have seen over the past year, we should not expect too many major surprises.

That said, voting has been exceptionally strong this year and there was clearly a lot of competition for the awards this year. No distributor will come to Battersea on 23 November sure of winning any award.

Although it has been a challenging year for Computer 2000 (C2000), few would bet against it winning something again. According to May, the com-pany has continued to do a good job this year.

“C2000 continues to provide a very reliable service, competitive pricing and extensive product range,” he said.

Distributors are usually the ones to brag about their performances, but there is very strong competition in the distribution categories this year. No one can take anything for granted.

Among the other distributor awards the Specialist category again looks to be the most open, with six companies from very different parts of the market contending for the prize.

Both Midwich and Steljes Trade focus mainly on the booming audiovisual market. These two companies are the largest of the contenders. Promethean specialises in education, so also has a lot of involvement in audiovisual. However, the other three are from very different markets.

Widgit UK is a well respected provider of specialist components for hand-held devices, while Interactive Ideas focuses on software and peripherals. DMSL is entirely focused on developing broadband and related opportunities with BT partners. Any one of these six companies could win, because all are bound to attract significant support from their own customer bases and vendors.

In the Networking, Storage and Security Distributor categories there are some obvious favourites and some real outsiders. But all contenders will feel they have a chance here as well.

The longest shot here is probably Blue Solutions, which is on the Software short list and a relative new-comer. But these awards are there to be won and, with the judges also considering the relative size of the companies and the standard of their entries, as well as the voting, of the companies on the final list can win.

The reseller categories are very open indeed. That said, Equanet must again be the favourite to win the main award and perhaps the Corporate crown as well, although there are six very strong businesses on the short list.

There will also be plenty of support for last year’s winner of the SME category, according to Andy Comerford, channel manager at D-Link.

“PC World Business understands the SME market well,” he said. “It is also well placed to serve this customer base, has excellent marketing tools and trained staff.”

However, the SME award in particular is being contested by two other companies that have plenty of Channel Awards experience – WStore and Ramsac – so PC World Business cannot afford to bring any assumptions along to the awards later this month. Nor can Blue Chip, Chess or Luxtech be dismissed.

The Corporate Reseller of the Year award could be a close one this year. While Equanet always gets a good deal of support from customers and the channel, it has stern competition this year in the form of Kelway, Esteem and Logicalis, in particular.

Gary Fowle, marketing director at Fujitsu Siemens Computers, said that just about any of these companies would be a worthy winner.

“Kelway is a very impressive organisation and has made very noticeable progress over the past year and Equanet’s track record speaks for itself,” he said.

Jon Atherton, vice-president of distributor Entanet, which has been nominated in three of the distributor categories, thinks that the important thing among resellers is that the Awards recognise good service.

“There are a lot of great resellers out there delivering great service and at the end of the day, that’s really important,” he said.

“Servo is a good example of a reseller that is doing a great job for its customers. I’d really like to see it win an award.”

To win, Servo will have to beat Eurodata which, along with G3 Telecommunications, Luxtech and Logicalis, are all up for two separate reseller awards this year.

The Editor’s Choice award is also a very open one this year. There are many companies or products that could be in contention, but there is no single com-pany, service or product that has really stood out from the crowd for the channel in 2006.

Fowle said he would like to see Microsoft get some kind of recognition this year, either here or in the Software Vendor category. “Microsoft gets a good deal of criticism, but it has really worked hard over the past year with the channel. I think that deserves some acknowledgement,” he said.

Another contender would be virtualisation specialist, VMWare, which Fowle believes has also done well. “VMWare seems to be almost a permanent fixture in data centre deployments and gives excellent support to the channel,” he added. “It is a good company to work with from a partner perspective.”

Just about any company from the short lists could be a contender for the Editor’s Choice award this year. Some that are not on the list, such as processor developers AMD and Intel, could also be under consideration. Both have advanced the market towards 64-bit computing and dual-core technology, raising the performance bar for the whole industry.

The final award of the night is for Channel Personality of the Year. While some of the contributors to this article could be up for this award, Lockie’s favourite is Joe Hemani of Westcoast, whom he describes as, “a great business networker, generous and with a huge personality. Mine’s a large one, Joe!”

Whoever wins, one thing you can be sure of is there will be many a large glass raised and enjoyed in London on 23 November.