Industry Awards - Winners' Stories: Interviews

ASI Solutions has a long history in education, winning its first state-based contract in 1991.

In 2007, at the inaugural ARN Awards, Data#3 picked up the award for Integrator of the Year.

Brennan IT continues to be a rising star in the channel, riding on the back of a wave of fascination with the cloud, it picked up the ARN Awards’ Mid-Market Reseller of the Year.

Axxis, Accord Technologies, Aspirence, D2K Townsville, Netrics, and Anittel. These are the companies that Peter Kazacos’ Hostech has acquired in a year of massive growth.

APC has done the double; winning Green Vendor of the Year for a second consecutive year at the ARN awards.

Fujitsu takes its global sustainability message very seriously. If you head over to au.fujitsu.com, it’s right there – a header link proudly directing people to its sustainability page.

Ingram Micro has made many changes in the past year. It has restructured its business to focus on two streams of business - the Enterprise Technology Group (ETG) and Volume Business Unit (Volume BU).

Ingram Micro’s $6 million investment in a datacentre has been a big success, so much so that the distributor picked up this year’s award for Best Distributor Initiative for the development.

Express Data has done amazingly well in a market that some observers argue is becoming increasingly difficult for distributors to operate within.

WhiteGold has steadily increased its presence in the Australian channel through the years, and has emerged as a significant player in the security and networking space, a feat that was recognised at the 2010 ARN Awards when it picked up Specialist Distributor of the Year.

A job well done and an affinity for people are the two main reasons Westcon Group order management and licensing team leader, Stephanie McFadden, won the customer service personal innovation award.

To Alphawest principal architect for datacentre and cloud computing, Rodney Haywood, winning the personal innovation award for technical excellence is a reward for his team and recognition for a job well done.

EMC’s WA branch might be a relatively small one, but it has developed a reputation for quality partner support, reflected in this year’s Personal Innovation, Sales Excellence award going to channel manager, Andrew Winter.

The ARN Awards Hardware Vendor of the Year gong has been won for the fourth straight year by HP. The company's ability to maintain a stable hold as the premiere hardware vendor is a spectacular result.

APC is a regular name amongst the ARN awards winners, and this is the second time it has picked up the Specialist Vendor of the Year award.

VMware has had a stellar year. Riding high on the virtualisation phenomenon that has persisted as cloud becomes the hot new topic of interest, the vendor picked up Software Vendor of the Year for the second consecutive year.

In a year that has been so dominated with discussions around cloud computing, and a year where partners of all walks have been looking to their vendors to help them on this ‘journey,’ it makes sense that the Best Emerging Technology Initiative of the Year would go to a vendor that has been clear and articulate in its cloud message.

Symantec has had a busy year. In April, at its partner conference in Senza, China, the vendor outlined a strategy that involved significant changes to its partner program. As yet, we still don’t know all the details of these changes.

Corporate Express was a first time winner at the 2010 ARN Industry Awards, picking up the Channel Choice Reseller category.

Ingram Micro is the largest and most prominent distributor within the Australian landscape. According to the ARN Distributor Guide, it boasts more than 700 staff, and although it is headquartered in Sydney, it is comfortable dealing with resellers across the country.