Channel Awards roll around again

Sara Yirrell looks forward to this week's channel Oscars

Channel Awards week is finally here.

I know I say this every year, but I really cannot believe that it has come around again so quickly.

This year’s event is set to be our biggest and best yet and there are a few surprises in store. All pleasant ones, I hasten to add.

We have a varied list of winners this year, all of which were picked on the strength of their entry by two separate and independent judging panels.

It is hard to convey the amount of work that goes into judging the awards, but rest assured it is a lot, as my two judging panels will verify.

And I will stress again: no vendor judged another vendor, no distributor judged another distributor and no reseller judged another reseller.

Elsewhere in the magazine that has hit many of your desks this week we look at the growing worries in the HDD market about the impact the Thailand floods are having on prices and the supply chain.

There are concerns that this crisis is going to carry on well into next year, bringing with it continuous price increases.

Such rises are difficult at the best of times, but with the economy as it is and IT hardware spend hardly going through the roof, it is a bitter blow to the channel. Not to mention the personal effect on the poor people actually living and working there.

We have a very full issue this week, with an interesting take on the graduate recruitment market and the benefits of taking on apprentices; we catch up with HP PSG to chat about its future under Meg Whitman; and we also examine the big green datacentre monster.

Plus, we look back over 35 years with CA Technologies, which celebrates its birthday this year.

Sara Yirrell is editor of CRN and Channelweb