2023 Annual Report Card Winners: Solution Providers Give Top Grades To Key Vendors

For the 38th year, solution providers scored vendors across 25 technology categories based on their performance in product innovation, support, partnership, and managed and cloud services. Here’s a roundup of the companies with the highest overall scores.

Making The Grade

For the 38th year, CRN offered solution providers in North America the opportunity to grade the performance of their IT vendor partners with the CRN Annual Report Card.

The CRN ARC provides a look at which IT vendors are doing the best job in meeting their partners’ needs in terms of products, support, partner program resources and other critical criteria that determine the success or failure of a vendor-solution provider relationship.

The winners of this year’s ARC project are being unveiled in conjunction with the XChange August 2023 conference being held this week in Nashville, Tenn., hosted by The Channel Company, CRN’s parent company.

Solution providers scored vendors across 25 technology categories. These include longtime channel technology mainstays such as industry-standard servers, laptops and mobile devices, enterprise network storage hardware, and enterprise and SMB network security. It also includes newer technology areas such as converged/hyperconverged infrastructure and hybrid cloud Infrastructure as a Service.

Partners graded IT vendors on a total of 21 criteria spanning product innovation, support, partnership, and managed and cloud services. Companies received average scores for each criteria and an overall score for the technology category. Details on the survey and methodology can be found on the following slide.

Which IT companies are at the top of their game in the eyes of their channel partners? Read on to find out which vendors earned the highest marks this year.

Annual Report Card Criteria And Scoring

Solution providers graded IT vendors according to 21 criteria spanning:

Product innovation: Includes product quality and reliability, richness of product features and functionality, product technical innovation, product compatibility and ease of integration, marketability and services opportunity.

Support: Includes presales support, post-sales support, training, quality of field management and marketing support.

Partnership: Includes solution provider programs, communication, managing channel conflict, revenue and profit potential, and ease of doing business.

Managed and cloud services: Includes consumption-based and subscription pricing, integration with services management tools, cloud-readiness of channel program, field teaming and channel compensation alignment, and profit margins and profit potential.

In some technology categories a single vendor dominated the scoring, winning not just the top overall score, but also the average grades across all four criteria and, in some cases, even sweeping all 21 criteria.

In other technology categories two or more vendors split the results with different vendors earning the highest average scores for different criteria—and in some cases even splitting the highest scores for specific criteria.

In the highly competitive cloud security technology segment, for example, one vendor had the highest average scores for product innovation and partnership while another company had the highest average scores for support and managed/cloud services.

Even within each of those broader criteria in the above example, vendors that did not have the highest average did win one or more higher scores in specific criteria. In the partnership category, for example, one company had the overall highest average score while another vendor had higher scores for communication and ease of doing business while a third company had the highest score for managing channel conflict.

The following slides provide a summary of this year’s ARC results. The complete scores will be published on CRN.com on Oct. 2 and in the October print issue of CRN.

Cloud Storage: Wasabi Technologies

Channel Executive: Laurie Mitchell, SVP, Global Marketing

Wasabi Technologies was uncontested in this technology category, earning an overall score of 81.9.

Wasabi’s scores were especially strong in product innovation with an 88.0 average. The company earned an impressive 104.7 grade in product quality and reliability—one of the highest criteria subcategory scores in this year’s Annual Report Card—as well as 95.3 in product compatibility and ease of integration, and 90.3 in product technical innovation.

In other criteria Wasabi earned average scores of 73.7 in support, 82.5 in partnership, and 82.2 in managed and cloud services.

Converged/Hyperconverged Infrastructure: Scale Computing

Channel Executive: Scott Mann, VP, International Sales, Global Channel Chief

Scale Computing was the runaway winner in this increasingly important technology category, garnering an overall score of 92.3 to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 86.8 and Nutanix’s 82.2. It was the first of two wins for Scale Computing in the 2023 Annual Report Card.

Scale Computing earned the highest average scores in all four criteria: 96.0 in product innovation, 92.2 in support, 93.7 in partnership and 86.6 in managed and cloud services.

The company even outscored the competition across all criteria subcategories, including high grades of 103.9 in product quality and reliability, 99.5 in post-sales support and 99.9 in ease of doing business.

Data Protection: Barracuda Networks

Channel Executive: Maria Martinez, VP, Channels, Americas

Barracuda Networks came out on top in this crowded category with an overall score of 87.2 and top average grades in support (85.2), partnership (88.9) and managed and cloud services (83.9).

But Axcient put up a fight with an overall score of 85.6. The company won in product innovation with a 91.0 average score—including an impressive product quality and reliability grade of 106.4, the highest criteria subcategory score in this year’s Annual Report Card. Axcient also earned top grades in several criteria subcategories, including revenue and profit potential (87.9) and profit margins/profit potential (87.5).

Also competing in this technology category were Veeam Software with an overall score of 83.0, Hewlett Packard Enterprise with 81.0 and N-able with 78.2.

Data Security: Sophos

Channel Executive: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

This technology category was the first of five Annual Report Card wins for Sophos in 2023—the most of any vendor.

Sophos scored 89.8 overall in data security, edging out Proofpoint and its 87.3 overall score.

Sophos came out on top in this technology category with the highest average scores for product innovation (92.5), support (88.2), partnership (90.6), and managed and cloud services (87.5). The company also swept all criteria subcategories with high scores such as 91.9 for presales support and 91.8 for communication. [Watch video]

Enterprise Network Storage Hardware: Pure Storage

Channel Executive: Wendy Stusrud, VP, Global Partner Sales

Pure Storage largely dominated this key channel technology category with an overall score of 89.3 and top average scores in product innovation (92.6), support (87.1), partnership (91.0), and managed and cloud services (85.6).

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which had an overall score of 86.8, had some subcategory wins here including highest scores for services opportunity (82.7), integration with services management tools (82.4) and cloud-readiness of channel program (82.8).

Enterprise Network Infrastructure: HPE Aruba Networking

Channel Executive: Jim Harold, VP, Channels

This technology category is the first of four wins by HPE Aruba Networking in the 2023 Annual Report Card.

HPE Aruba won the category with an overall score of 88.3 and top average scores in product innovation (94.7), partnership (89.3), and managed and cloud services (83.2).

Nvidia was second overall with a score of 85.2. The company was the top scorer in support with an 85.4 average score (including grades of 91.5 in post-sales support and 90.4 in training). The company also garnered the top score (100.1) in product technical innovation.

Juniper Networks received an overall score of 82.4 in this technology category, and Extreme Networks scored 81.9 overall.

Enterprise Wireless LANs: HPE Aruba Networking

Channel Executive: Jim Harold, VP, Channels

This technology category was the scene of HPE Aruba Networking’s second win in this year’s Annual Report Card. Aruba won the category with an overall score of 88.8, including average scores of 94.5 in product innovation, 88.9 in partnership, and 83.7 in managed and cloud services.

But Extreme Networks wasn’t far behind with an overall score of 88.2. The company won the support criteria with an average score of 89.1 and took top scores in presales support (94.4), post-sales support (97.4) and training (87.6).

Juniper Networks, which came in third with an overall score of 84.5, was given top scores for product technical innovation (101.0) and richness of product features/functionality (96.1). Cisco Systems scored 72.0 overall.

Extended Detection And Response: Sophos

Channel Executive: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

Sophos scored its second win in this year’s Annual Report Card with an overall score of 90.8 in this all-important security technology category. The win included top average scores for product innovation (93.9), partnership (92.0), and managed and cloud services (88.4).

SentinelOne, however, was close behind with an overall score of 90.5 and beat out Sophos in some areas. The company won the support criteria with an 88.9 average score and garnered top scores in a number of subcategory criteria including 102.0 for product quality and reliability, 92.6 for communication, 91.4 for revenue and profit potential, and 90.4 for integration with services management tools.

Kaspersky Lab scored 81.1 overall in the EDR category while Palo Alto Networks scored 76.3 overall. [Watch video]

Hybrid Cloud IaaS: Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Channel Executive: Phil Soper, North America Head of Channel Sales

HPE scored the first of its two 2023 Annual Report Card wins here with an overall score of 86.1.

HPE, in fact, swept all criteria in this technology space, tabulating average scores of 88.7 in product innovation, 84.6 in support, 85.2 for partnership, and 85.5 in managed and cloud services.

Dell Technologies received an overall score of 72.2.

Industry-Standard Servers: Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Channel Executive: Phil Soper, North America Head of Channel Sales

HPE’s second 2023 Annual Report Card win came in this key technology category where it won with an overall score of 87.4.

HPE also won the top average scores for all four criteria 91.9 in product innovation, 84.8 in support, 87.9 in partnership, and 84.1 in managed and cloud services.

Dell Technologies and Nvidia did collect top scores in several criteria subcategories. Nvidia, which had an overall score of 83.6, scored highest (95.8) in product technical innovation and 82.1 in training. Dell Technologies, with an overall score of 79.1, scored highest in post-sales support (89.0) and ease of doing business (88.8).

MSP RMM Platforms: N-able

Channel Executive: David Weeks, VP, Partner Experience

This was a close match between winner N-able with its overall score of 77.8 and Barracuda MSP, which scored 77.6 overall.

N-able scored highest in three of the four criteria: 82.1 in product innovation, 74.6 in support and 78.2 in partnership.

Barracuda had the highest average score for managed and cloud services (77.3). The company also took top scores for a number of subcategory criteria such as 77.1 for services opportunity, 85.1 for training and 75.0 for solution provider program.

ConnectWise scored 70.6 overall in this technology category while Kaseya scored 65.8 overall.

Multi-Cloud Software Platforms: Scale Computing

Channel Executive: Scott Mann, VP, International Sales, Global Channel Chief

Scale Computing dominated this technology category with an overall score of 92.9 as it recorded its second win of the 2023 Annual Report Card.

Scale Computing swept all criteria categories and subcategories—often by significant margins. The company recorded top average scores of 94.8 in product innovation, 90.2 in support, 94.2 in partnership, and 92.1 in managed and cloud services.

Within those criteria some subcategory criteria scores stand out including 102.4 for product quality and reliability, 101.2 for ease of doing business, and 98.7 for cloud-readiness of channel program.

Nutanix was second in this technology category with an overall score of 85.4, and VMware was third with an overall score of 80.6.

Network Connectivity: Spectrum Partner Program

Channel Executive: Keven Clifton, VP, Strategic Sales Channels, Spectrum Business

Spectrum Partner Program edged out a win in this technology category with an overall score of 75.9 and top average scores in three of four criteria: 79.1 in product innovation, 74.3 insupport and 81.0 in partnership.

Comcast Business scored 74.2 overall and won the managed and cloud services criteria \with an average 69.3 score. Comcast also collected higher scores in a scattered number of criteria subcategories including 76.3 in product technical innovation, 74.5 inproduct marketability, 77.9 in quality of field management and 76.4 in solution provider program.

Network Security—Enterprise: Sophos

Channel Executive: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

Sophos came out on top in this crowded and competitive technology space with an overall score of 89.0—the company’s third win in this year’s Annual Report Card.

Sophos took the top average scores for each criteria including 92.6 in product innovation, 87.5 in support, 90.6 in partnership, and 84.4 in managed and cloud services.

It wasn’t a clean sweep, however, as rivals captured top scores across scattered criteria subcategories.

Akamai Technologies was second in this technology category with an overall score of 87.0. The company scored an impressive 103.7 for product quality and reliability, 99.0 in richness of product features/functionality, 97.6 in post-sales support, and 92.1 in revenue and profit potential.

Fortinet, which scored 86.1 overall, scored highest in services opportunity (86.5).

WatchGuard Technologies scored 85.5 overall while SonicWall scored 83.0 overall. [Watch video]

Network Security—SMB: Sophos

Channel Executive: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

Demonstrating its networking security strengths across both the enterprise and SMB spaces, Sophos decisively won this technology category with an overall score of 91.8—the fourth of Sophos’ five wins in this year’s Annual Report Card.

Sophos achieved the top average scores across all four criteria: 95.4 in product innovation, 90.0 in support, 93.7 in partnership, and 87.3 in managed and cloud services. Within those categories the company received some grades in the high 90s including 99.2 for richness of product features/functionality, 99.0 for product technical innovation, and 99.7 for ease of doing business.

But in a sign of how competitive this space is, WatchGuard Technologies scored 103.2 for product quality and reliability—the highest single score in this technology category—and 96.8 for post-sales support. WatchGuard scored 85.4 overall in the SMB network security category.

SonicWall scored 86.0 overall while Barracuda Networks scored 85.5 and Fortinet scored 83.0. [Watch video]

Notebooks/Mobile Computers: Acer America

Channel Executive: Philip Burger, VP, U.S. Channel Sales

Acer dominated this all-important technology category with an overall score of 78.9. The company also racked up the highest average scores in all four criteria including 82.6 in product innovation, 76.3 insupport, 81.4 in partnership, and 74.4 in managed and cloud services.

It wasn’t a clean sweep, however, as HP Inc. received the highest score, 92.2, for the product quality and reliability criteria. HP received an overall score of 72.6.

Dell Technologies received an overall score of 67.9 in this technology category.

Power Protection And Management: Vertiv

Channel Executive: Peter Klanian, SVP, Sales, North America

Vertiv was the runaway winner in this technology category, scoring 90.3 overall and sweeping all criteria categories and subcategories.

Vertiv received a 92.3 average score inproduct innovation—including an impressive 101.3 score for product quality and reliability. The company also received the highest average scores for support (91.1), partnership (94.8), and managed and cloud services (82.5).

Eaton received an overall score of 85.9 in this technology category while Schneider Electric received an overall score of 75.0.

Processors: Intel

Channel Executive: Jason Kimrey, VP, U.S. Channel, Partner Programs

This was a very competitive technology category with Intel narrowly winning with an overall score of 83.5.

Intel received the highest average scores across three criteria including 91.7 in product innovation, 81.9 in support and 85.5 in partnership. The product innovation category included a 103.8 grade for product quality and reliability—one of the highest scores on this year’s ARC.

Nvidia wasn’t far behind, however, with an overall score of 83.2. Nvidia also won the highest average score in the managed and cloud services criteria (73.8) and garnered the highest scores in a number of criteria subcategories including 101.4 in product technical innovation, 84.8 in pre-sales support, 85.3 in solution provider program and 81.1 in managing channel conflict.

AMD had an overall score of 74.5 in this technology category.

SD-WAN: HPE Aruba Networking

Channel Executive: Jim Harold, VP, Channels

SD-WAN has been a hot area for the channel and HPE Aruba Networking swept the scoring in this technology category—the third of the company’s four wins on this year’s Annual Report Card

HPE Aruba received an overall score of 90.0 for this technology category and garnered the highest average scores in all four criteria: 92.3 in product innovation, 89.6 in support, 92.3 in partnership, and 85.2 in managed and cloud services.

Fortinet received an overall score of 85.8 in this technology category and Comcast received an overall score of 79.4.

Security—Cloud: (Tie): SentinelOne

Channel Executive: Ken Marks, VP, Global Channels

This competitive technology category produced the only tie on this year’s Annual Report Card with both SentinelOne and Sophos receiving an overall score of 89.3.

SentinelOne received the highest average scores insupport (87.7) and managed and cloud services (87.3). It also had the highest scores in a number of subcategory criteria, including 95.7 for richness of product features/functionality, 96.2 for product technical innovation, 93.1 for revenue and profit potential, and 96.3 for ease of doing business.

Tenable, which received an overall score of 87.8 in this product category, received the highest score (91.6) for managing channel conflict.

Proofpoint received an overall score of 83.6 in this technology category while Mimecast received an overall score of 82.5.

Security—Cloud: (Tie) Sophos

Channel Executive: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

This competitive technology category produced the only tie on this year’s Annual Report Card with both Sophos and SentinelOne receiving an overall score of 89.3.

Sophos received the highest average scores for product innovation (91.7) and partnership (91.0). It also had the highest scores for a number of subcategory criteria including 89.2 for quality of field management, 82.5 for consumption-based/subscription pricing, and 89.9 for cloud-readiness of channel program.

Tenable, which received an overall score of 87.8 in this product category, received the highest score (91.6) for managing channel conflict.

Proofpoint received an overall score of 83.6 in this technology category while Mimecast received an overall score of 82.5. [Watch video]

Security—Endpoint Protection: SentinelOne

Channel Executive: Ken Marks, VP, Global Channels

SentinelOne dominated this security technology category with an overall top score of 91.5. The company also received the highest average scores for all four criteria including 96.0 in product innovation, 89.3 in support, 92.2 in partnership, and 87.8 in managed and cloud services.

Rival Sophos earned an overall score of 90.1 in this technology category. It also received the highest scores in several criteria subcategories including 86.2 in services opportunity, 88.9 in solution provider program and 85.2 in cloud-readiness of channel program.

SonicWall received an overall score of 88.1 in this technology category while WatchGuard Technologies received an overall score of 84.9 and Kaspersky Lab received an overall score of 79.0.

Security Management: Tenable

Channel Executive: Chris Blando, Sr. Director, Channel Sales, Americas

Tenable dominated this technology category with an overall score of 88.1 and recorded the highest average scores across all criteria: 92.3 in product innovation, 85.2 in support, 89.8 in partnership, and 84.3 in managed and cloud services.

The product innovation average included an impressive score of 101.0 for product quality and reliability.

IBM kept this category from being a clean sweep for Tenable, however, by scoring 78.1 in marketing support, the highest grade in that criteria subcategory. IBM earned an overall score of 81.5.

N-able earned an overall score of 81.7 in this technology category.

SMB External Storage Hardware: Buffalo Technology

Channel Executive: Bill Rhodes, Director, Channel Sales

Buffalo Technology came out on top in this technology category with an overall score of 87.6.

Buffalo earned the highest average scores across all four criteria including 89.9 in product innovation, 87.4 in support, 91.9 in partnership, and 80.8 in managed and cloud services. The product innovation average included a score of 102.4 for product quality and reliability—one of the highest scores in this year’s ARC.

HP Inc. scored 85.4 overall in this technology category. The company also earned the highest scores in a number of criteria subcategories including 91.7 in richness of product features/functionality, 91.0 in. product technical innovation and 79.5 in services opportunity.

SMB Networking: HPE Aruba Networking

Channel Executive: Jim Harold, VP, Channels

In a photo finish, HPE Aruba Networking narrowly beat out Fortinet in this crucial technology category, scoring 83.3 overall to Fortinet’s 83.2.

This technology category marks the fourth of HPE Aruba’s four wins on this year’s Annual Report Card.

The two companies tied in product innovation with an 88.2 average score and each receiving higher scores in several criteria subcategories. HPE Aruba scored highest for product quality and reliability (97.2) and product technical innovation (90.5), for example, while Fortinet took top scores for richness of product features/functionality (91.8) and product marketability (81.6).

HPE Aruba had higher average scores for the partnership (84.1) and managed and cloud services (79.3) criteria, although Fortinet had higher scores in several criteria subcategories (including 80.7 for managing channel conflict and 76.9 for cloud-readiness of channel program). Conversely, Fortinet had the higher average score for support (81.3) with Aruba winning a higher score within that criteria category for quality of field management (84.7).

Unified Communications & Collaboration: Zoom Video Communications

Channel Executive: Todd Surdey, Head of Global Channels, Business Development

Zoom Video Communications was the clear winner in this technology category in the 2023 Annual Report Card. Not only did Zoom have the highest overall score at 79.3, but it also won all four criteria with top average scores of 87.6 in product innovation, 74.1 in support, 75.8 in partnership, and 77.9 in managed and cloud services.

Cisco had an overall score of 75.4. The company also had the highest scores in several specific criteria including 75.7 for post-sales support, 75.8 for marketing support, 74.6 for managing channel conflict, and 83.4 for revenue and profit potential.