Channel Awards - Three in a row for C2000

Those awards in full. Micro P and Ingram Micro also in the running

They came, they drank, they conquered. Is there no stopping the Basingstoke massive?

For the third year running, distributor Computer 2000 (C2000) took the CRN Business Distributor of the Year prize at the annual Channel Awards, held in Battersea Park, London, this week.

Sponsored by AMD and Cable & Wireless, the eighth awards evening was attended by nearly 1,000 of the UK channel's finest. The stunning Melinda Messenger presented the awards, and the comedy was supplied by Sean Meo.

In a repeat of last year, C2000 scooped four more awards, for top PC/peripherals, value-added services, network and e-business distributor.

But this time, the UK arm of global distributor Tech Data did not have it all its own way. In the network and value-added services distributor categories, the voting was so close that, under CRN's rules, C2000 shared the spoils with equally worthy winners Micro Peripherals and Ingram Micro respectively.

In the storage distributor category, last year's winner, Ideal, took the prize again. Azlan was specialist distributor of the year, while Midwich took the SME title.

It was also a good night for Compaq in the vendor categories. The systems and services giant was named as Hardware Vendor of Year and won Outstanding Product of the Year for its stylish iPAQ handheld computer.

In the other vendor categories, Hewlett-Packard was SME Vendor of the Year, while Microsoft was top software vendor once again.

Cisco continued to dominate the network vendor category, and IT leviathan IBM was Services Vendor of the Year.

In the reseller categories, Equanet continued to shine as VAR of the Year, in a repeat of last year's performance, while Amazon.co.uk grabbed the e-Reseller of the Year title.

Demon blazed in as Service Provider of the Year, and the inaugural Syscap Technology Innovator of the Year award went to Data Integration.

This year my Editor's Choice went to 3Com for its hard work, approach and strategy for channel partners.