WINNER: EMC

EMC handily won the Backup and Recovery Software category, as it did in 2010. This year, the vendor swept every criteria, thereby winning each of the three subcategories. Its overall score of 88.5 was the fourth-highest in the entire report card. The vendor was helped substantially by its performance in return on investment--its score of 92.3 was the third-highest in that criteria in the ARC--and in managing channel conflict, where its 87.0 was the fourth-highest in that area.

"Our superior backup software quality and reliability scores can be explained in a single word: 'focus,'" said B.J. Jenkins, president, EMC Backup Recovery Systems Division. Several years ago, EMC recognized the significant opportunity for backup redesign in the IT industry and increased its focus on the backup and recovery space. "We've also turned considerable focus and product development assets on backup of virtualized environments," Jenkins said.

Still, the vendor has room for improvement in partner portals, an area in which all of the competitors in this category struggled.

The partner portal and overall partner experience is an aspect that EMC is committed to addressing.

"A key initiative that is embedded within our overall partner strategy is simplifying and scaling our partnering model," said Fred Kohout, vice president, Global Channel Marketing, EMC. "Ease of doing business remains at the core." In fact, EMC scored very highly in ease of doing business, with a 90.5; the second-place score was Symantec's 84.4. The company has made investments in underlying technologies to achieve that goal.

"In 2011, we rolled out to EMC's Velocity Partners the EMC Partner Central Portal, leveraging our Salesforce.com footprint.This new portal sets the foundation for maximizing partner relationship management, providing a central and bidirectional gateway between EMC and our partners," Kohout said. "EMC will continue to invest in and enhance our partner online experience across all aspects of our partner engagements."