2012 Annual Report Card Award Winners

Deep In The Heart Of Texas: 2012 Annual Report Card Award Winners

Solution providers and channel executives from throughout the industry gathered for the 2012 CRN Annual Report Card awards, held August 21 at the XChange 2012 conference in Dallas, Texas.

The 27th edition of the ARC gathered over 3,600 solution provider responses to rank 83 channel programs across 23 technology categories in three areas: product innovation, support and partnership, as well as an overall category winner. Here’s a look at this year's award ceremony and at who came out on top.

An Industry In Transition

UBM Channel CEO Bob Faletra spoke about what he described as "the unprecedented changes" sweeping the channel that in the last four years "have seen many solution provider organizations either be acquired or shut their doors."

"This is all part of the natural equalizing in the market," he said. "In every business cycle we have seen partners go out of business and partners come in. But, there is also something very different happening. Never have we seen the type of disruption and disintermediation we are experiencing as the result of cloud being both a technology and a business model-driven change."

Some solution providers, using guidance they gain from XChange, have adapted their business model and "are seeing phenomenal growth," Faletra said. "We are also seeing many new entrants into the channel and expect that to accelerate, some of whom are and will see explosive growth."

A Toast To The Channel

Edison Peres, Cisco senior vice president of worldwide channels, offered a series of toasts to UBM Channel for organizing the XChange 2012 event, to solution providers for the success they bring to the IT industry and vendors like Cisco, and to XChange attendees for all the work and travel they endure to create a prosperous life for themselves and their families.

Kaspersky Lab

Kaspersky swept the client security software category, scoring highest for product innovation, support and partnership. This year alone Kaspersky has been on the forefront of Mac security, winning kudos for analyzing the Mac botnet and rolling out a threat management package for the Mac platform.

Chris Doggett (center), Kaspersky vice president of North American channel sales, accepts the ARC awards from CRN Vice President and Editorial Director Kelley Damore and Editor, News Steven Burke.

Intel

Intel swept the processor category as channel partners gave the manufacturer top marks for the company’s continued investments to ensure its technology remains synonymous with innovation and speed and provides the horsepower needed to help the industry harness and fulfill the promise of big data.

David Bradshaw (center), Intel client platforms manager, North American channel sales and marketing, accepts the ARC awards from CRN’s Kelley Damore and Steve Burke.

NEC

NEC has a long history of supplying large screen displays, LED walls, desktop monitors and other display products to solution providers. This year, NEC received top scores for product innovation and support in displays of 19 to 30 inches and product innovation in the digital signage category.

Emily Narkviroj (center), NEC director of channel marketing, accepts the ARC awards from CRN’s Kelley Damore and Steve Burke.

Samsung

Samsung has been on a roll this year as it has gained visibility and market share in the consumer electronics space with its broad array of smartphones, tablet computers, TVs, cameras, client devices and, of course, displays. This year Samsung scored highest in partnership in the 19-30 inch flat panel displays category and earned the overall win for displays.

Richard Hutton (center), Samsung director of channel marketing, accepts the ARC awards from CRN’s Kelley Damore and Steve Burke.

Viewsonic

Digital signs are everywhere, from sports stadiums and convention centers to hotels and restaurants. Pushing the envelope in its development of large screens and touch-screen technology, it's no wonder Viewsonic is this year's high scorer in support, partnership and the overall win in the digital signage category.

Sarah Kearns (center), Viewsonic marketing manager, accepts the ARC awards from CRN’s Kelley Damore and Steve Burke.

VMware

In just the last year VMware has made a number of acquisitions to round out its product offerings and has changed up its management team to position itself for the future. This year, VMware made a clean sweep of the desktop and server virtualization category.

Laurie Evans (center), VMware director of partner strategy and operations, accepts the ARC awards from CRN Executive Editor Online Jennifer Follett and Senior Editor Chad Berndtson.

RSA

No matter where data resides, whether it's in the cloud, virtualized or on-premise, it's got to be protected while ensuring that the right people have access to the right data. RSA, an EMC company, has been a leader in the critical area of authentication. This year, RSA swept the network security category.

Shawn Pearson (center), RSA senior director of channels and inside sales, accepts the ARC awards from CRN's Jennifer Follett and Chad Berndtson.

Fortinet

Network security appliances proved to be this year's most hotly contested category. Fortinet, which offers VARs multiple layers of defense, from unified threat management to database endpoint security and data center security, scored highest among solution providers in partnership.

Kendra Krause (center), Fortinet vice president of channel sales, for large and small businesses, accepts the ARC award from CRN's Jennifer Follett and Chad Berndtson.

Dell/SonicWall

SonicWall has long been a leader in intelligent network security, offering a range of hardware, software and appliances that help large and small businesses detect and control malware. The company technology was so successful that it caught the eye of Dell, which acquired SonicWall earlier this year. Solution providers gave SonicWall the highest grades for its product innovation and a tie for the overall win in network security appliances.

Vince Massey (center), SonicWall senior director of North American channel sales, accepts the ARC awards from CRN's Jennifer Follett and Chad Berndtson.

Lenovo

In the crowded notebook market, Lenovo has succeeded in standing out with its innovatively designed notebook and tablet computer products. Recently, the vendor inked a deal to be the platform of choice for EMC's VSPEX reference architecture. Lenovo is this year's high scorer in product innovation in the notebook category.

Greg LaBelle (center), director of channel sales, central region, accepts the ARC award from CRN's Jennifer Follett and Chad Berndtson.

Ruckus Wireless

For the second year in a row Ruckus Wireless beat out more established players in the SMB network hardware market. The company has become a go-to vendor when it comes to the wireless LAN market with a number of patents in Wi-Fi transmission video transport and advanced wireless security. This year, Ruckus Wireless received the highest grades for product innovation and partnership in the SMB networking hardware category.

Janet Hendrickson (center), Ruckus Wireless senior marketing manager, channel development, accepts the ARC awards from CRN's Jennifer Follett and Chad Berndtson.

IBM

Middleware may not be the most glamorous of software technologies, but it's the glue that holds many IT systems together. This year, IBM swept the middleware category, earning top scores for product innovation, support and partnership.

Shaun Jones (center), IBM vice president, worldwide business partner and midmarket marketing, accepts the ARC awards from CRN's Jennifer Follett and Chad Berndtson.

Xerox

Xerox has steadily built its channel go-to-market strategy and evangelized the opportunities around managed print services. The company continues to unleash products that help them maintain their leadership in document technology. This year, Xerox scored the highest marks in support and partnership, and it was the overall winner in the workgroup color printer category. The company also scored a complete sweep of the multifunction printer category.

Tom Gall (center left), Xerox director of channel marketing, and Annalisa Mena (center right), Xerox vice president of U.S. field operations, accept the ARC awards from CRN's Jennifer Follett and Chad Berndtson.

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard took home eight ARC awards this year, not surprising, perhaps, for a company with a $65 billion hardware business and one of the largest, most established channel programs in the industry. This year, HP swept the volume server category; scored highest in product innovation in the workgroup color printer category; and received the highest marks in support, partnership and the overall win in the notebook category.

Matt Smith (center), HP director of Americas partner marketing, printing and personal systems, accept the ARC awards from CRN’s Kelley Damore and Steve Burke.

EMC

EMC is synonymous with data storage. But today, the company has expanded into a broad range of technologies including security, IT management and governance, data warehousing and content management. And while it's a key IT supplier to many of the world's biggest corporations, it continues to make inroads into the SMB space with its products and channel programs. This year, EMC collected 12 awards, sweeping the backup and recovery, SMB network storage and enterprise network storage categories.

Tom Siegel (second from left), senior director of U.S. channel sales; Maureen Perrelli (center), director of channel distribution; and Jeff Nollette (second from right), senior director of EMC's national partner program, accept the ARC awards from CRN’s Kelley Damore and Steve Burke.

Microsoft

Microsoft is in the midst of a wave of major product introductions, including its market-shaking debut of its Surface tablet in June to this fall's shipment of the Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 operating systems. And they have committed to more channel incentives as the company expands its reach into cloud computing. Microsoft captured a total of 16 ARC awards by sweeping the business intelligence, cloud applications, collaboration software, and data and information management software.

Eric Martorano (third from left), senior director of Microsoft U.S. SMB channel group, and members of his team accept the ARC awards from CRN’s Kelley Damore and Steve Burke.

Cisco

Cisco has taken its original mix of networking infrastructure products and moved into a variety of adjacent markets including unified communications, servers, wireless, security and more. It has made investments in a number of emerging technologies, such as software-defined networking and virtualization security, and has unveiled its Cloud Connect platform. All the while the company continues to build its model on leveraging the channel, and the channel has remained loyal to them as a result.

This year Cisco won 16 ARC awards, including sweeping unified communications, enterprise networking infrastructure and midrange servers. The company also scored highest in support and overall in SMB networking hardware, received top scores in support and tied for the overall win in network security appliances. Edison Peres (second from left), senior vice president of worldwide channels, and his team accept the ARC awards from CRN’s Kelley Damore and Steve Burke.

XChange Solution Provider 2012

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