ShadowRAM: Awards, awards and more awards

COMMENTARY: Rumours, truth and innuendo

Awards, awards and more awards
There’s an “award frenzy” going on in the channel. Hmmm, must be that time of year.

Microsoft was first cab off the rank this month, awarding Express Data its Australian Distributor of the Year for the third time in a row at its annual partner conference in Coolum, Queensland. The folks at Ingram must be wondering where they’ve gone wrong.

Other Microsoft winners included Professional Advantage, which took out the Platform Solution of the Year award, local ISV Brookstone Technologies took out the Business Productivity Solution of the Year award, ISV Solution of the Year went to Icomply, CRM Management Solution of the Year went to Snapdragon Consulting, and ERP Solution of the Year went to Eclipse Computing.

Kyocera and Sun Microsystems also got in on the act. At its annual dealer awards night, Kyocera announced state and national dealers of the year. The printer vendor uses a range of sales, service, marketing and general conduct criteria to select winning dealers.

National Dealer of the Year went to West Australian reseller CDM Australia. CDM was also a state winner. Other winners included ME Business Solutions (NSW), Action Copiers (Victoria) and Delta Office Solutions (Queensland).

Hardware vendor Sun Microsystems was also giving out some ‘plaques for the poolroom’ with systems integrator Frontline Systems Australia grabbing the System Provider of the Year (national and NSW) gongs for the second year running. Dimension Data won the state award for Western Australia and Victoria, Alphawest got a guernsey in the ACT and Queensland, while Volante won the award in South Australia.

Phew!


Resellers: Start your engines!
Lexmark Indy 300 sponsor Acer Computer is dishing out prizes that could see some lucky punters attend the motor racing event on the Gold Coast.

Obviously looking to bump up sales of its Centrino-based notebooks, channel salespeople with the highest unit sales of Acer Centrino notebooks and/or Acer P4 HT desktops up until 30 September win prize packs. The top VIP prize pack is an absolute cracker -- a $4000 trip for one adult for the Indy event including return airfares, three nights’ accommodation at the Marriot and a VIP ticket to the Acer Chicane Luxury Suite.

The “Overachievers” pack isn’t too shabby either. It includes a 15-minute helicopter ride above the Indy track, pace car ride around the track and merchandise pack. Details are here: www.acer.com.au/indyincentive.


Apple recruiting rengineers
The blog “Engadget” reported recently that Apple is trying to recruit Sony Vaio engineers, as Steve Jobs & Co get ready to produce the first Intel-based PowerBooks next year.

While they’re at it, Apple may want to start thinking about hiring some channel executives with experience in things Intel.

After all, Sony did a great job in designing and building its sleek-looking Vaio systems but has been nowhere near as successful keeping channel executives in its fold.