Big Blue awards best partners

The beer and bubbly was flowing at IBM’s annual Business Partner Summit in North Sydney last Thursday, as the vendor rewarded its top Australian partners for 2011.

A number of the CRN Fast50, past and present, took to the stage.

The Missing Link (CRN Fast50 2011 #24) was named IBM’s reseller of the year, while Advent One (CRN Fast50 2010 #19) took maintenance partner of the year.

Southern Cross Computers Systems (CRN Fast50 2011 #30) won IBM system x partner of the year and Victorian solution partner of the year. Data #3 (CRN Fast50 2009 #20) was named growth partner for the year in Victoria as well as IBM’s maintenance partner of the year in Queensland.

Avnet was named IBM distributor of the year as well as finance partner of the year.

For IBM’s 'smarter planet' awards, Data#3 took out the smarter computing category, Retriever Communications won smarter work and Tridant was named best for data analytics.

Also honoured were three local partners named as finalists in IBM’s coveted ‘global beacon’ awards. They were Cubewise, runner-up for best retail solution, NetBox blue which scored the silver medal for outstanding solution for mid-size businesses and Odecee, which placed second for outstanding software innovation.

The Missing Link earned a special mention for ‘outstanding technical excellence – growth market units’.