Reseller Choice Awards 2009 Winners Announced
Resellers make their voice heard
2009 has been a difficult year for many people and businesses. Amid all this turmoil, it is nice to be appreciated for your work, especially if it is coming from your peers. Now in its 4th year, the 2009 Canadian Reseller Choice Awards gives vendors a well-deserved “pat-on-the-back”. For vendors who missed the top spot, it is something to strive for in 2010 as it is truly a good compliment when the resellers who buy and sell your products, give you the thumbs-up.
Over the past 60 days, hundreds of Canadian resellers voted for the best in 91 categories. A total of 5,373 votes decided the winners of this year’s Reseller Choice Awards. A big thank-you to all the resellers who voted!
Here are the winners of 2009. Congratulations to all nominees and winners!
Best Accounting
1-Accpac (Sage)
2-Intuit
3-Sage
John Schoutsen from Sage collects a well deserved award as they took the number one and three spots. Watch Video on ecnTV
"At Sage, we take pride in the personal relationships we build with our partners and customers that help them be successful in their businesses. As the leading supplier of accounting and ERP solutions, it's an honour to receive their recognition with this award." Comments Laurie Schultz, General Manager, Mid-Market ERP Solutions, Sage.
Best Backup
1-Symantec
2 Acronis
3-IBM Tivoli
Fred Patterson accepts two awards for Symantec for Best Back Up and IT Security. Watch Video on ecnTV.
"Symantec is honoured the reseller community has chosen us as the winner of e-ChannelNews' 2009 award for Best Backup and Best Security," said Fred Patterson, Director, Enterprise Channel, Symantec (Canada) Corp. "Our partners are very important to us. Wehave put an emphasis on helping them be successful and are pleased to see that work paying off. We look forward to continuing to help our partners grow their business and stay relevant with our joint customers."
Best Blade Server
1-HP
2-IBM
3-Intel
Greg Chappell Vice President, Solution Partners Organization, accepts the awards on behalf of HP. Watch Video on ecnTV.
HP took 23 awards! Last year they won for best overall vendor. This year they were the winners in Best Black & White Laser Printer, Best Blade Server, Best Business Desktop, Best Colour Laser Printer, Best Consumer Desktop, Best Consumer Notebook, Best Flatbed Scanner, Best Gaming Desktop, Best Multi-Function Ink-Jet Printer, Best Multi-Function Laser Printer, Best NAS, Best Netbook, Best Personal Laser Printer, Best Portable Printer, Best Rackmount Server, Best SAN, Best Sheetfed Scanner, Best Tablet PC, Best Tower Server, Best Vendor Channel Program, Best Vendor Support, Best Workstation and Greenest Company. Congratulations!
Best Business Notebook
1-Lenovo
2-HP
3-Toshiba
Stephan Bockhop Director of Sales, Reseller Channel collected the award for Lenovo.
Lenovo was able to win Best Business Notebook and showed a very solid second place finish in other categories. Lenovo is definitely one to watch. Mr. Bockhop took the opportunity to showcase some of their newest notebooks at the event. Watch Video on ecnTV.
Best CAD
1-Autodesk
2-IMSI
Marcus Tateishi from Autodesk collects award for Best CAD application.
There were no third-place votes for other vendors in this category. Watch Video on ecnTV.
Best Computer Case
1-Antec
2 InWin Development
3-Incase
Stan Lublin Country Manager, Canada Antec collected the award of Best Computer Case and Power Supply. They have won this award for the past 4 years now. Watch for a line of notebook accessories from Antec this year. Watch Video on ecnTV.
Best Digital Signage
1-LG
2-Samsung
3-Viewsonic
Ed Menashy, National Sales Manager, Digital Signage and IT Channel for LG Electronics collected the award of Best Digital Signage. Watch Video on ecnTV.
"We are very pleased and honored to have won the award for Best Digital Signage 2009. Providing an unmatched level of service and support, along with superior display products has propelled LG to the #1 market share position in Canada for Large Format Display. We value and thank all of our partners who have chosen the market-leading features of LG display technology and our Digital Signage solution to take to their clients. Stay tuned to LG for more exciting products and services that will make 2010 the year of Digital Signage for the VAR community!" Comments Ed Menashy, National Sales Manager – Digital Signage and IT Channel.
Best Distributor
1-Tech-Data
2-Synnex
3-Ingram-Micro
Rick Reid, President of Tech Data collects three awards for Best Distributor, Best Industry Event and Best Value Add Distributor.
With Tech Data's third win in a row, it is clear who is the channel's favourite. This year, Tech Data increased their lead by the number of votes so it seems that they may have actually grown their popularity in 2009. Getting the top spot for Value-Add Distributor also demonstrates that the resellers consider them more than just for buying product. Their Business Builder Tour received a lot of votes and when combined with all of their other events, they took top spot for Best Industry Event.
Watch Video on ecnTV.
Rick Reid, President, Tech-Data Canada: "I am delighted to receive all three Reseller Choice Awards on behalf of all Tech Data Canada employees. To be recognized a third year in a row is an incredible honour and validation that all our various efforts in support of our customers are appreciated and valued. Sincere thanks to all those who voted."
Best Gaming Monitor
1-Viewsonic
2-Samsung
3-LG
Deidre Deacon - National Sales Manager of Viewsonic collects award for Best Gaming Monitor. Watch Video on ecnTV.
Best Home Theater Projector
1-InFocus
2-Sony
3-Panasonic tied with Hitachi
"InFocus truly appreciates being recognized by our Canadian reseller partners and will continue to provide them with best in class products, programs and support." Comments Mike Murphy, Canada Sales Manager, InFocus.
Best Notebook Carrying Case
1-Targus
2-Kensington
3-Caselogic
Rui Tristao, Director of Commercial Solutions from Targus collected the Award for Best Carrying Case. They have dominated this category right from the beginning. They will be launching several new products in the coming year. After starting the company in Canada about 25 years ago, Zeno Ricci's, recent departure from Targus was a surprise to many. He will be missed, but we will look for him in his next business venture.
Best Portable Speakers
1-Logitech
2-Bose
3-Altec Lansing
Olana Hastings, Channel Marketing Manager and John Szemeczko, Sales & Marketing Coordinator collect six awards for Best Portable Speakers, Webcam, Wired Keyboard, Wired Mouse, Wireless Keyboard and Wireless Mouse. Watch Video on ecnTV.
Best Portable Storage
1-LaCie
2-Seagate
3-Western Digital
LaCie's Christian Stackler collected the award for Best Portable Storage. Their sleek designs may have been a factor in taking first place over the big brands.
Best Professional Display
1-Samsung
2-HP
3-NEC tied with Apple
Rose Marcello collected the Award for Samsung. It is interesting that LG took the award for Best Digital Signage, but Samsung won for Best Professional Display. Since professional displays include all business use of displays which could include Digital Signage, it may be somewhat confusing. Maybe LG's total solution approach may have put them in the lead for Digital Signage as a total solution as they launched a new partner program in late 2009. Maybe Resellers felt that Samsung had the lead only in the professional display market which may or may not include digital signage. We expect to see a lot of activity in the growing Digital Signage market in 2010.
"It is a great honour to have been chosen for this award. We understand 2009 has been a challenging year and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our partner's for their business and this award" Comments Marco Nalli, Marketing Manager - IT Division, Samsung Canada
Best SLR Digital Camera
1-Nikon
2-Canon
3-Kodak
Gregory Flasch - National Advertising and Communications Mgr. For Nikon collects his first ever Reseller Choice Award. We are seeing a wider interest from technology resellers as this year's SLR Digital Camera category proves. We added video camera categories as well. Nikon was the clear winner in the SLR category as voted by technology resellers. We may not be professional photographers, but we sure know and like our high-tech toys. Watch Video on ecnTV.
Best SMB Network Switch
1-Cisco
2-D-Link
3-Netgear
Donna Wittman accepts eight awards for Cisco. Cisco won the 2009 Canadian Reseller Choice Awards for Best Business Router, Best Enterprise Switch, Best Enterprise Telephony, Best Managed Services, Best SMB Network Switch, Best SMB Telephony, Best SOHO Network Switch and Best SOHO Telephony. Watch Video on ecnTV.
"These awards are a validation of our hard work and the evolution of our relationships with partners and customers, particularly in the SMB market," said Donna Wittmann, vice president, channels for Cisco Canada. "We've put significant investment into developing products, services and programs that meet the unique needs of our SMB channel partners and customers. These awards tell us we're on the right track."
Best Value Monitor
1-Acer
2-LG
3-Samsung
Susan Bernie - Marketing Manager collects award for Best Value Monitor for Acer. Watch Video on ecnTV.
“We are so pleased to have been recognized by our valued reseller partners for a 2009 Canadian Reseller Choice Award for Best Value Monitors,” said Susan Burnie, Marketing Manager, Acer Canada.
“Acer is focused on delivering maximum value to resellers and their customers across our complete line of computing products, and we feel honored to have been acknowledged for our monitor line. Moving forward, we will continue raising the bar on value, performance and innovation across our entire line of notebooks, desktops, servers and displays.”
Best Channel Video News Media
1-ecntv
There were no other votes in this category as neither CDN nor CRN were nominated by the Resellers. To be fair, CDN and CRN also do video content. However, only ecnTV has a dedicated video portal with 24/7, 365 days a year video streaming to the entire channel. Since e-ChannelNEWS was the primary news media that promoted the Reseller Choice Awards, it may have unbalanced the voting as e-ChannelNews is the sister-portal of ecnTV. The ecnTV team has put a lot of effort into building this project for the past couple of years and thanks everyone for their vote of support. Keep watching www.ecntv.ca as they will bring you a lot more video in 2010.
Next year, they are hoping to bring the Reseller Choice Awards ceremony LIVE through web video streaming! Imagine that being viewed by thousands of resellers live?
Best Industry Event
1-Tech-Data events
2-Ingram Micro events
3-ChannelNext events
The resellers voted for specific events or the organizer of events. The total number of votes by each organizer were accumulated and the winner was Tech Data. Tech Data's Business Builder certainly helped them to clinch the top spot. ChannelNext got the most votes for a specific event, but lost grounds to the sheer number of events that Tech Data and Ingram Micro produce. We must also note that since ChannelNext is affiliated with eChannelNEWS, the main promoter of the Reseller Choice Awards, it may have been a contributing factor in the voting. The Intel Road Tour also did well as did events from CDN.
Best Memory
1-Kingston Technology
2-Crucial tied with Corsair
3-SanDisk
David Kuo, General Manager for Canada, Kingston Technology comments.
"Kingston Canada would like to thank the Reseller community for their support and partnership through a challenging year. We are honored by your business and confidence in our products. We hope to continue to meet your requirements and needs in 2010...thank you again!"
Best Online Channel News Media
1-E-ChannelNEWS
2-CRN Canada
3-CDN
e-ChannelNews won the top spot for online news delivery but we must point out that since eChannelNews was the primary promoter of the Reseller Choice Awards, it may have affected the voting. For over 10 years e-ChannelNews has been bringing news, promotions, business tips etc to the channel and enjoys a consistently strong readership. With their addition of ecnTV about 2 years ago, they continue to meet the information needs of the channel. Did you know that resellers can use content form e-ChannelNews and their huge content database of the top 25,000 products to build their own e-newsletter for FREE? Both CRN and CDN generated a large number of votes and the numbers were very close. The recent departure of key people like Steve Wexler from e-Channelline may have contributed to the weaker voting for e-Channelline. Regardless of positioning, it is clear that Canadian resellers use a combination of all these online tools to get information.
Other Categories and Winners...
Best Black and White Printer
1-HP
2-Lexmark
3-Samsung
Best Business Desktop
1-HP
2-Lenovo
3-Acer
Best Business Projector
1-InFocus
2-BenQ
3-NEC
Best Business Router
1-Cisco
2-D-Link
3-Linksys (Cisco)
Best Colour Laser Printer
1-HP
2-Lexmark
3-Xerox
Best Computer Speakers
1-Altec Lansing
2-Bose
3-Logitech
Best Consumer Desktop
1-HP
2-Apple
3-Acer
Best Consumer Notebook
1-HP
2-Lenovo
3-Acer
Best CPU
1-Intel
2-AMD
Best Database
1-Microsoft
2-MySQL
3-Oracle
Best Desktop Storage
1-Seagate
2-LaCie
3-Western Digital
Best Enterprise Switch
1-Cisco
2-HP
3-D-Link
Best Enterprise Telephony
1-Cisco
2-D-Link
3-Nortel
Best Flash Drive
1-Kingston Technology
2-SanDisk
3-Corsair
Best Flatbed Scanner
1-HP
2-Fujitsu
3-Canon
Best Gaming Desktop
1-HP
2-Dell
3-Acer
Best GPS
1-Garmin
2-TomTom
3-Magellan
Best Graphic Card
1-nVidia
2-ATI
3-AsusTek
Best Graphic Design
1-Adobe
2-Corel
3-Microsoft
Best Graphic Tablet
1-Wacom
2-Solidtek
3-Adesso tied with Penpower
Best Handheld
1-RIM Blackberry
2-Apple
3-HP
Best Hard Drive
1-Seagate
2-Western Digital
3-Quantum
Best HD Video Camera
1-Sony
2-Canon
3-Panasonic
Best Headset
1-Plantronics
2-Logitech
3-Altec Lansing tied with Sony
Best Home/Consumer Router
1-Linksys
2-D-Link
3-Netgear
Best Managed Services
1-Cisco
2-Level Platforms
3-Checkpoint
Best Massaging/Collaboration
1-Microsoft
2-OpenText
3-Kerio
Best Motherboard
1-Intel
2-AsusTek
3-AOpen
Best Multi-function Ink-Jet Printer
1-HP
2-Canon
3-Epson
Best Multi-function Laser Printer
1-HP
2-Brother
3-Lexmark
Best NAS
1-HP
2-IBM
3-Seagate
Best Netbook
1-HP
2-Asus
3-Lenovo
Best Network Adapter
1-D-Link
2-Cisco
3-Netgear
Best New Vendor
1-IronKey
2-Lakeside Software
3-Aluratek
Best Operating System
1-Microsoft
2-Apple
3-Novell
Best Personal Laser Printer
1-HP
2-Brother
3-Lexmark
Best Point and Shoot Digital Camera
1-Canon
2-Nikon
3-Sony
Best Portable Printer
1-HP
2-Canon
3-Epson
Best Portable Projector
1-InFocus
2-Epson tied with Viewsonic
3-NEC
Best Portable Video Camera
1-Sony
2-Canon
3-Samsung
Best Power Supply
1-Antec
2-Coolermaster
3-Corsair
Best Print Channel News Media
1-CDN
2-CRN
Best Pro Video Camera
1-Sony
2-Canon
3-Panasonic
Best Productivity Software
1-Microsoft
2-Adobe
3-Apple
Best Publishing
1-Adobe
2-Microsoft
3-Corel
Best Rackmount Server
1-HP
2-IBM
3-Dell
Best SAN
1-HP
2-IBM
3-Seagate
Best Security
1-Symantec
2-Trend Micro
3-McAfee
Best Sheetfed Scanner
1-HP
2-Fujitsu
3-Canon tied with Plustek
Best SMB Telephony
1-Cisco
2-D-Link
3-3Com
Best SOHO Network Switch
1-Cisco
2-D-Link tied with HP
3-Netgear
Best SOHO Telephony
1-Cisco
2-3Com
3-Mitel tied with Avaya
Best Specialty Distributor
1-Arrow
2-Bluestar
3-Supercom
Best SSD
1-Kingston Technology
2-Intel
3-Lenovo
Best Tablet PC
1-HP
2-Lenovo
3-Toshiba
Best Tower Server
1-HP
2-IBM
3-Dell
Best UPS Battery Backup
1-APC
2-Eaton
3-TrippLite
Best Utility
1-VMWare
2-Microsoft
3-Adobe tied with Symantec
Best Value Added Distributor
1-Tech-Data
2-Supercom
3-Arrow
Best Vendor Channel Program
1-HP
2-IBM
3-Cisco
Best Vendor Support
1-HP
2-IBM
3-Cisco
Best Web Development
1-Adobe
2-Microsoft
Best Webcam
1-Logitech
2-Microsoft
3-CreativeLabs
Best Wired Keyboard
1-Logitech
2-Microsoft
3-IBM
Best Wired Mouse
1-Logitech
2-Microsoft
3-Apple
Best Wireless Keyboard
1-Logitech
2-Microsoft
3-Apple
Best Wireless Mouse
1-Logitech
2-Microsoft
3-Apple
Best Workstation
1-HP
2-Lenovo
3-Acer
Greenest Company
1-HP
2-IBM
3-Asus
Greenest Product
1-SysTrack from Lakeside Software
2-Edison PC from Verdiem Corporation
Green product is a new category for us. There were several nominations but not much voting. We expect this category to be much larger next year as we expand our efforts in our green movement called www.mygreenitday.com We encourage all resellers to hold their very own MY Green IT Day and help reduce the e-waste going into the landfills. It is FREE and it is the right thing to do!
Without the resellers nominating vendors and voting each year, there would be no Reseller Choice Awards. On behalf of all the vendors that you voted for, we thank you very much and look forward to your continued support for 2010.
This year's “thank-you-for-voting” prize winners were randomly selected. Here are the winners:
$250 GAS Certificate – Sponsored by ecnTV. Winner: Jean-Claude Bédard, of CPU Service in Québec City
Special Olympic Team Shirt – Sponsored by Kaspersky. Winner: Preston Karoly, of WBM in Saskatoon
SL500 Notebook – Sponsored by Lenovo. Winner:John Corbett, of Lanetco Computer Networks of Burlington
A special thank-you to the vendors who sponsored prizes for the 2009 awards. Your support for the Canadian Reseller Choice Awards is greatly appreciated by us and the resellers.
About the Reseller Choice Awards:
The national online survey was promoted to the entire Canadian reseller channel through www.echannelnews.com, www.ecntv.ca, several direct e-mail invitations as well as several other vehicles including national distributor web sites such as Ingram Micro, Tech Data and Synnex. The votes were counted and the vendor with the most votes won. The Reseller Choice Awards is one of the most comprehensive voting surveys in Canada by resellers and continues to grow each year. Three draw prizes were offered as part of a thank-you to the voters for taking the time to participate. These prizes were randomly drawn from the registered voter list. The Reseller Choice Awards is a production of e-ChannelNEWS and ecnTV, a division of TechnoPlanet Productions Inc. See www.technoplanet.com.
No voter was paid nor received any communication to favour any vendor whatsoever by TechnoPlanet nor any of its divisions or employees. Winners as well as top placers can be very proud because this was a true vote of support by the resellers. It is also a great annual opportunity for resellers to have their voice heard by the vendor community to encourage them to keep up the good work or improve for next year.
TechnoPlanet Productions Inc. is a Canadian marketing and communications company that helps technology companies to develop and grow their reseller channel network in North America and Europe. With over 20 years of doing business in the Information Technology sector, TechnoPlanet does just about everything to help its vendors succeed. To learn more about TechnoPlanet's twelve business divisions please visit http://www.technoplanet.com/stopchannelsurfing/ and www.technoplanet.com
e-ChannelNews is a news portal and daily electronic newsletter that targets the Canadian computer reseller channel. Since 1998, it has been delivering important industry information with a special emphasis on presenting solutions on marketing and business issues facing resellers today. ecnTV is the fully integrated video news streaming affiliate of e-ChannelNews. Combined, these two news media vehicles reach over 20,000 channel subscribers in Canada. The Right Information for Resellers. At the Right Time. Right to your Desktop. See www.e-channelnews.com and www.ecntv.ca
