Over 500 vendors were nominated in 80 categories of the 2010 Reseller Choice Awards. Over 700 Canadian resellers voted. Each reseller could vote for their favorite vendor in each of the 80 categories.

Vendor winners attending ceremony

This year we welcomed the vendors at the formal Reseller Choice Award Ceremony and Reception. Everyone was welcomed with a glass of champagne and hors d'oeuvres as networking started. Two leading resellers (Derek Sardo from Rolling Thunder and Rick Jordan from Tenet Computer Group) announced the winners and handed out the Awards on stage. Pictures were taken, hands were shaken and most vendors used the chance to thank the resellers on the ecnTV camera. Vendors were also able to do one-on-one interviews that will be posted on www.ecntv.ca. Afterwards, attendees listened to IDC’s Keynote on the 2011 IT Predictions as they continued to enjoy more drinks, gourmet food and great conversations well into the evening.

If a distributor or vendor was ranked or even nominated in the Reseller Choice Awards, it means that for every vote they got, those resellers who voted for them felt that they were the very best. Just by being nominated in the Reseller Choice Awards means that your company is on the radar of resellers. Being in the top ten of a category is a great accomplishment. Winners should be especially proud as it indicates that they got the absolute most votes by resellers.

Rick Reid, President, Tech Data Canada

Rankings in some categories were very close, a few separated by just one vote. Every vote truly counts and we thank every reseller for voting. This has become the annual report card for vendors and distributors by resellers. Resellers get an opportunity to grade the vendors and distributors and they can learn from the results and hopefully improve their performance next year.

For the fourth year in a row, Tech Data won for Best Distributor. This is truly a great achievement as they continue to stay on top, year after year. They also won for Best Availability/Delivery, Best Customer Service, Best Product Support, and Best Terms and Conditions. Synnex was second in the distributor categories except for Customer Service and Product Support (Bluestar and Ingram Micro came in second in these two categories, respectively). Ingram Micro was third in Best Distributor but gained more votes than last year.

Jacques Lapierre and Laura La Prairie, of Bluestar Canada

BlueStar won for the Best Specialty Distributor, followed by Supercom and then Arrow. Supercom did very well in Product Support, coming in third place. Supercom was also fourth in Best Availability/Delivery and Best Customer Service. D&H is starting to gain ground placing in the top 10 distributors (fourth in Best Specialty Distributor and sixth in Best Distributor) with a seventh placement in Product Support and sixth for Terms and Conditions as well as Customer Service.

For Best Channel Events, Tech Data came in first, followed closely by ChannelNext, then Ingram Micro and Synnex (separated by just one vote!). The Intel Road Show and AppleExpo rounded out the top 5 event spots.

HP Canada Receives award

Hewlett-Packard was the big winner taking the top spot for Best Vendor plus another nineteen categories. They dominated almost all printer and computer categories. Lenovo held on to the top spot in Best Business Notebook and was second in Best Tablet PC, Business Workstation as well as Business Desktop and fifth in Best Server.

While HP took top spots in Best SAN, NAS and Server, IBM was a very close second in these categories. In the printer categories, Xerox, Lexmark, Canon and Brother all rallied for second and third spots in the printer categories. However, Samsung took second place in the Best Personal Laser Printer and fifth in Best Black & White Laser Printer and Best Colour Laser Printer.

This year, Asus went beyond Best Motherboards to include Best Gaming Computer and Best Value Monitor and Best NetBook. Best New vendor was Aluratek.

DELL also gained ground in the Channel. They came in third in Best Business Desktop, Best Consumer Desktop and Best Workstation. DELL also came in fourth in Best Business Notebook, Best Consumer Notebook and Best Server.

Stefan Bockhop, Director of Channel Sales, Lenovo Canada

Cisco won for Best Managed Services and swept up almost all of the Networking and Telephony categories. Microsoft won for Best Cloud Application, Best Messaging/Collaboration, Best Database, Best Productivity Software and Best Operating System.

D-Link also did very well. Number one in Best Home/Consumer Router and Network Adapter. Second in SMB Network Switch, SMB Telephony, SOHO Network Switch, Business Router, and Enterprise Telephony, and third in Enterprise Switch. Netgear seems to be on the move placing third in Best Home/Consumer Router; Fourth in Best SMB Network Switch; And, third in SOHO Network Switch.

Todd Madgett, Director of SMB &
Distribution, Cisco Systems Canada

Apple won for Best HandHeld/Pad. They placed second in Operating System, fourth in Productivity Software and Consumer Desktop and fifth in Best Business Notebook as well as Desktop and Sixth in Consumer Notebook. Considering that the vast majority of voting resellers were from the Windows platform, Apple did very well.

In the Component side, Best Computer Case and Best Power Supply were won by Antec. Best CPU by Intel. Best Keyboard, Mouse and Speakers by Logitech. Best Graphics Card went to Nvidia. The Best Hard Drive was won by Western Digital, followed by Seagate. Best Memory and Best Flash Drive was dominated by Kingston (who also won Best SSD).

Stan Lublin, Canadian Country Manager, Antec

This year, LaCie was over-taken by both Western Digital and Seagate in Best Portable Storage. Best UPS Battery Back-Up went to APC, followed by TrippLite and Eaton Power and CyberPower. However, Eaton ranked highest in Best Profitability as compared to all their competitors. Targus dominated the Notebook Carrying Case category again this year, but still trailing Logitech in most of the other accessory categories.

The battle for Best Digital Signage was won by LG with a very narrow margin over Samsung, followed by Viewsonic. In contrast, Samsung won for Best Professional Display over LG (NEC was third and Viewsonic was fourth).

In the software categories, Adobe won for Best Graphics Application, Best Publishing and Best Web Development. VMWare won for Best Utility Application. Best Accounting Software was won by Sage followed by Intuit, Acomba, GreatPlains and Business Vision. Best Back-Up was won by Symantec. There seems to be no competition to Autodesk (AutoCad) in the CAD Applications as they won by a huge margin.

David Stevens, National Sales Manager, Autodesk Canada

Top 10 Best Profitability was won by HP, followed by Lenovo, Asus (ranked surprisingly high in profitability and maybe one reason for their recent growth spur), Dell, Citrix, Cisco, Eaton Power, Fujitsu (who also won for Best Sheetfed Scanner), Toshiba and IBM.

Top 10 Best Vendors: HP, Lenovo, Dell, VMWare, Toshiba, Asus, IBM, Cisco, Acer and Xerox.

Top10 Best Channel Programs: HP, Lenovo, Cisco, Microsoft, Dell, D-Link, VMWare, Xerox, IBM, and Intel.

Top 10 Best Vendor Support: HP, Lenovo, D-Link, Dell, Cisco, VMWare, IBM, Toshiba, Intel and Microsoft.

Top 10 Best Distributors: Tech Data followed by Synnex, Ingram Micro, Avnet, Arrow, BlueStar and D&H were tied for sixth, then Supercom, then Interwork tied with Elco Systems for eight, then GB Micro, then SID Distribution, Daiwa Distribution and Taknology were all tied for tenth. This category was a very close race after fifth place. There were 22 distributors nominated in this category.

Top 10 Best Specialty Distributors: BlueStar followed by Supercom, Arrow, D&H tied with Simple Technology, then Avnet, Interwork, ScanSource tied with ASI, then Elco and Westcon. There were 26 distributors nominated in this category.

Best Green vendors were HP followed by Asus, IBM, Apple, Dell and Xerox. Cisco was in the top 10.

Corinne Sharp and Andrea Van Leeuwen, of Microsoft Canada

Best Cloud Application was Microsoft, followed by VMWare, Google, HP, and Citrix. EMC dominated the Cloud Storage Solution Category only being challenged by Axcient.

Best IT Security was Symantec followed closely by Kaspersky, Trend Micro, Eset, AVG, Microsoft, McAfee, BitDefender, Malwarebytes, Fortinet tied with Panda and Watchguard.

Top 5 Business Notebooks: Lenovo won by a healthy margin followed by HP, Toshiba, Dell and Acer.

Top 5 Business Projectors: InFocus, BenQ, NEC, Viewsonic and Epson.

Top 5 Home Theatre Projectors: InFocus, BenQ, Sony, Epson and NEC.

Top 5 Portable Projectors: InFocus, BenQ, Epson, Viewsonic, followed by NEC, Sony and Optoma all tied for fifth.

In the Consumer Electronics categories, Canon won for Best SLR Digital Camera followed by Nikon, Olympus and Sony. Best GPS was dominated by Garmin. Best HD Video Camera was won by Sony followed by Canon, Panasonic and Samsung. Best Point and Shoot Camera was won by Canon, followed by Nikon, Sony, Olympus and Fujifilm. Best Portable Video Camera was won by Sony, followed by Canon, Cisco (Flip) and Samsung.

From the people who bring the news to the resellers, Best Channel Print Media was CDN/ITBusiness followed by CRN/ITinCanada. Best Online Video was CDN/ITBusiness followed closely by ecnTV. Best online media was e-ChannelNEWS followed by CDN/ITBusiness, CRN/ITinCanada and e-channelline.