Over 500 vendors were nominated in 82 categories. There were over 16,000 votes – an increase of over 25% from the previous year. This is the 6th year of the Reseller Choice Awards. And, the winners are…

Vendors attending the Awards ceremony

The biggest upset this year? In previous years HP was the winner of best notebook, desktop, workstation, vendor, profitability and support. Now it was Lenovo winning many of the top spots previously held by HP. Lenovo also won for best vendor of 2012. It was clear from the voting that VARs got behind Lenovo in a significant way that propelled them to #1 in vendor profitability, channel program and vendor support.

Stefan Bockhop of Lenovo accepting the award

Again it was Tech Data taking the #1 spot for the 6th year in a row for best distributor. Tech Data dominated all of the other distributor categories such as support, customer service, terms and conditions, availability and support. Synnex came in second place followed by Ingram Micro. Supercom was a close 4th as it gained many more votes this year. Bluestar was 5th. D&H came in 6th. Arrow was 7th. Scansource was 8th. Wescon was 9th. And, Avnet rounded out the top 10.

Rick Reid of Tech-Data accepting the award

While both Synnex and Ingram Micro closed the gap in some of the distributor categories, Synnex made the most gains. In total, there were 57 distributors nominated in best distributor and best specialty distributor categories.

For the 3rd consecutive year Bluestar came in first in the best specialty distributor category; Supercom was second. The biggest gains this year came from Interwork who ranked third. Arrow was 4th followed by Scansource. Arrow was 6th. Anixter came in 7th. Westcon was 8th. Lifeboat was 9th and GB Micro finished up the top 10.

Best channel event went to Tech Data. Second was ChannelNEXT. Third was Synnex. Fourth was Ingram Micro. Fifth was Bluestar. ChannelNEXT was the only event in the top five that was not organized by any distributor and remains Canada’s top independent channel event. D&H came in 6th.

In the computer category, the battle was between HP, Lenovo, ASUS, Acer, Apple and DELL. While Lenovo came out on top in many of the computer categories, ASUS also climbed the ladder from previous years, winning top spot in best consumer notebook, gaming desktop and netbook.

Ron Hill from Asus accepting the award

DELL also got a lot more votes than previous years and made some solid gains in the server category. However, the big winner of the server category was HP as they won for best midrange server and volume server. IBM, DELL and Lenovo rounded out the server categories as both DELL and Lenovo gained significant votes to close the gap.

Dean Nellis of HP accepting the award

For the 6th consecutive year, Hewlett-Packard dominated the best printer category. They won them all. Brother, Xerox, and Canon also did very well as each were runner-ups in various printer categories. Both, Epson and Lexmark also received more votes this year. The gap continues to close between printer companies and it will be interesting to see how they all do in 2013.

Karen Rowden from Epson accepting the award

Cisco dominated networking and telephony including best router, enterprise switch, enterprise telephony and SMB network switch. D-Link took top spot in best consumer router. It was noteworthy to see that Cisco also won the top spot in managed service. The gaps between vendors in this category were very small so several were within reach of the top spot. There were many more nominees than in previous years as more vendors enter the managed service sector. We expect this to be an even bigger category next year. We may have to add several sub categories on this topic to accommodate its growth and diversity.

Bob Martin of Cisco accepting the award

The RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management) spot went to a Canadian company called Level Platforms, followed by another Canadian company N-Able. Autotask was voted the top service automation solution followed closely by Connectwise. As more VARS enter the managed service space, the battle for these categories is expected to heat up.

Nadia Karatsoreos of Level Platforms accepting the award

The cloud category was huge, showing the largest increase in vendor nominations than all others. Surprisingly, EVault came on stronger in the channel towards the second half of 2012, taking the top spot in the cloud back-up and recovery. However, gaps between vendors in this category were very small – less than 5 votes in many cases. Many vendors were in striking distance to the top spot. Microsoft took the #1 spot for cloud application. Best cloud storage went to Dropbox. We also expect to expand this category for next year.

Grant Folkard of EVault accepting the award

It was no surprise that best virtualization went to VMware, who continues to lead this category by a huge margin. Another upset this year was in best security, as it went to Kaspersky Lab, pushing Symantec into second. Symantec has dominated the top spot in this category for many years. Kaspersky’s channel focus over the past couple of years seems to be paying off.

Jas Sahota of VMWare accepting the award

David Hillier of Kaspersky accepting the award

Best digital signage went to LG and best professional display went to Samsung. Infocus took best business and best portable projector with Epson coming in a close second. Epson also won for best home projector. There were a lot more voting for Epson than in previous years since they have refocused their efforts in the channel last year with a new channel program.

Anne De Aragon from Microsoft accepting the award

Microsoft won for best operating system, best CRM, best database, best productivity software, best messaging/collaboration and best utility software. Best accounting went to SAGE followed by Intuit. Best back-up was Acronis. Best CAD went to Autodesk. Best graphic design and publishing went to Adobe. Best e-commerce went to ibiz10 and best data management software went to Commvault.

Brendan Dorney of Sage Software accepting the award

HP was top in best SAN, IBM second. Best desktop and portable storage went to Western Digital. Best flash drive went to Kingston and best SSD went to Intel. QNAP was the best NAS and best hard drive was Seagate.

Gary Drysdale of HP accepting the award

Power UPS category was won by APC followed by Tripplite and then Eaton. These 3 brands took the lion’s share of the votes in this category.

Rui Tristao of Targus accepting the award

Tablets continue to be amongst the fastest growth categories. Best tablet went to Apple followed by ASUS, Lenovo, Samsung and DELL. Best tablet PC went to Lenovo followed by ASUS, Samsung, HP, Acer and DELL.

Best new vendor for 2012 went to TP-Link and the runner up was Ruckus Wireless.

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists in this year’s awards. We are already looking forward to the 2013 Reseller Choice Awards with even more votes, more nominees and more prizes.

Great, that so many VARS voted! As more Resellers participate the better this event will become. A big thank-you to all the sponsors who donated the prizes!
The reseller winners for the prizes are:

1. Eddy Pang from NCIX (A R6300 WiFi Router donated by Netgear)
2. Bess Stathakos of IT Novations (An Apple iPad Mini donated by Symantec)
3. Kevin LaRocque of CDW (A Prize donated by EVault)
4. Peter McMahon of Protek Systems (A MS310dn Mono Laser Printer donated by Lexmark)
5. Francois Gaucher of Ergon Technologies (A Folio 13 Notebook PC donated by Hewlett-Packard)
6. Daniel Keer of Tech Squad (An OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus All-in-One Printer donated by Hewlett-Packard)
7. Ryan Tabor of MDSI Canada (An Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7" donated by Eaton)

And finally, a special thanks to our 2012 sponsors Tech Data, Bluestar, Eaton, Lexmark, Symantec, Netgear, HP and EVault for making this 6th Annual Reseller Choice Awards possible ­– there were no special consideration given to any sponsor beyond the branding of their logo on the web page and at the awards ceremony. All vendors are invited to be part of the next Reseller Choice Awards.

Each VAR was allowed to vote for their favorite vendor or distributor in each of 82 categories. VARS could vote in as many categories as they wished, but was not obligated to vote in every category. One VAR equals to one vote as no VAR could vote more than once per category. Only Canadian VARS were allowed to vote. The vendors with the most votes won. The event was hosted by three news media organizations dedicated to the Canadian IT Channel www.e-channelews.com, www.ecntv.ca and www.channelbuzz.ca

Check to see video coverage of the 2012 Reseller Choice Awards at www.ecntv.ca (click the Awards section).

Complete List of ALL 2012 Reseller Choice Award Winners: