Ideal wins a triple channel whammy

Ideal Hardware scooped three awards at last night's VNU 1996 Channel Group Awards, including the coveted PC Dealer Business Distributor of the Year.

Bytes and Simmons Magee won prizes for their reseller businesses, and Ingram Micro nabbed two awards at the ceremony. Frontline/Datech 2000 beat off last year's winner Sphinx Level V to pick up Unix Distributor of the Year. The awards were decided by 3,500 votes from readers of Channel Group magazines - PC Dealer, Computer Retail News and Var World - and the votes were independently counted and audited by the ABC.

For those who were not there - and those who were there but can't remember much of the evening - AMD, which sponsored the pre-awards reception, gave its Award for Alternative Choice to Microtronica.

In full, the 1996 Channel Group Award winners were:

PC Dealer Business Distributor of the Year - Ideal Hardware; Dealer of the Year - Bytes; Var of the Year - Simmons Magee; Independent Retailer of the Year - Micro Anvika; Multiple Retailer of the Year - PC World.

Peripherals Distributor of the Year - Ideal Hardware; Network Distributor of the Year - Azlan; Unix Distributor of the Year - Frontline/Datech 2000; Value-Added Distributor of the Year - Ideal Hardware; PC Distributor of the Year - Ingram Micro; Retail Distributor of the Year - Ingram Micro.

Best Software Product of the Year - Microsoft Windows 95; Best Hardware Product of the Year - Hewlett Packard Laserjet Printers; Retail Leisure Pro- duct of the Year - Quake, GT Interactive; Retail Business Product of the Year - Microsoft Office 95.