Who were the biggest winners of 2007?

Last November saw the first CRN Channel Champion Awards, closely followed by the second annual Reliability and Service Awards presented by our sister publication, PC Authority.

The judging process for the two awards is very different. The Channel Champion Awards are voted on by a private panel of industry professionals, while the R&S Awards are judged by the general public. PC Authority polled 14,000 tech buyers to gauge the reliability, customer service and satisfaction that consumers have come to expect for 2008. Responses mostly came from PC Authority readers but online communities such as www.overclockers.com.au, www.whirlpool.net.au and www.atomicmpc.com.au also helped to make it the most comprehensive tech survey ever produced in Australia.

High achievers
Comparing the two lists of winners, the stand out contender is Asus taking out the channel Marketing Award as well as the Notebook and Graphic Cards categories for the R&S. One of the awards presented to Asus was the Technology Innovator Award, this accolade is particularly important as it is one of the editorial awards decided by the reviewers and writers from the PC Authority team and recognises the company’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of technology. “Asus impressed us with the bold concepts it unveiled at Computex last year and then fulfilled the dream of a cheap lightweight laptop for all with Eee PC,” said Nick Ross, editor of PC Authority.

Ingram Micro won the Consumer Hardware distributor of the Year trophy from CRN and the results of the R&S survey echoed the fact that Ingram Micro is on the right track in this sector. The distributor partners with nine of the winning vendors from the R&S Awards covering a variety of categories. The vendors include Asus, Fujitsu, TomTom, Oki, Samsung, Seagate, Sony, Adobe and Philips. In addition, Ingram Micro also had another 18 of its vendors make it on the shortlist across the categories.

The runners up
Reviewing the two events, it is interesting to note that Asus is the only vendor to win at both awards.
In saying that, a few CRN winners were in the running for the R&S Awards which shows they rate well within the community. Linksys was shortlisted in the Best Wireless Router category and in the Editorial Awards Microsoft Office 2007 was shortlisted for Most Wanted Software and Microsoft was also up for Technology Innovator.

CRN’s Vendor of the Year, HP, was shortlisted for Best PC, Best Notebook, Best PDA/Smartphone, Best Inkjet Printer, Best Laser Printer and HP/Compaq was nominated in the editorial section for Labs Awards/Peripherals plus the A-List Award.

It’s good to note that the majority of companies that ranked well in the R&S Awards have a channel presence, although some do need to ramp up their channel strategy as indicated by the results in the CRN Awards where some major players didn’t appear. It’s vital to provide fantastic service alongside strong customer support, although if you want to succeed in the channel it’s important to back this up with partner programs, healthy incentives and enough product support and marketing funds for resellers.

Online retailers
Winning the Best Online Retailer category is a big deal and is the section that provided inspiration for the R&S Awards. “This was the category that started it all. An Australian distributor told us straight ‘you can’t trust online retailers’. Last year’s survey proved you can, but once again the results showed that the standard in service varies wildly,” said Ross.
Thirty-two companies received the required 100 votes to qualify for this sector and PlusCorp, one of last year’s joint winners, came through again although was nearly disqualified after going into administration as voting closed. PlusCorp was sold but is now back open with Nigel Fernandez still holding the reins.

The high standard of entries meant EYO, PC Maniacs and Umart.net.au took home Highly Recommended awards.

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