Overview: The VARBusiness 500 Event

Honoring the most powerful and accomplished solution providers in North America, the fifth annual VARBusiness 500 Awards event unfurled June 14 to overcapacity crowds celebrating against a backdrop of elegance. More than 400 solution providers, sponsors and VARBusiness staff spent the day talking to, and learning from, executives representing this elite group, the VARBusiness 500, at the sky-high Rainbow Room at New York City's Rockefeller Center.

Hard against a bird's-eye-view of the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and other New York legendary landmarks, the day-long program started with invitation-only, jam-packed executive roundtables, a lunch with the industry's hottest securities analyst, and dynamic information sessions that helped attendees create and assess their selling strategies.

And that was only the first half. As day moved to night, the ready-to-party crowd did exactly that: enjoying the skyline scenery and each other at a glamorous cocktail party, which, in turn, segued into our dinner awards ceremony, with featured keynote guest speaker former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the coveted VARBusiness 500 awards.

The Roundtables

A record turnout of more than 50 CxOs made their voices heard at three separate execu-packed roundtables that led off the day. The sessions were moderated by publisher Robert C. DeMarzo, senior executive editor T.C. Doyle, and managing editor/strategy Steven Lang, and covered the state of the IT marketplace and the economy.

Some of the CEOs participating in the two-hour roundtables include Mike Cox, Logicalis; Mark Melillo, Melillo Consulting; Harvey Najim, Sirius Computer Solutions; Dan Duffy, ePartners; Frank Alfano, MTM Technologies; and Kevin Powderly, Cybercore Technologies. Among the topics these three executive sessions discussed were compensation policies, generation demand, the competitive effects of Dell, CDW and hot technologies. (CEO comments will appear in future issues of VARBusiness, online and via podcasts, that will cover topics discussed during these sessions.)

Following the roundtables, Seagate hosted a luncheon featuring noted channel analyst Robert Anastasi. During his presentation, a no-nonsense Anastasi, the director of equity research at Raymond James & Associates, declared, "Apple has always been a lousy channel partner," in his discussion of the Apple-Intel deal.

His talk focused on the methods by which solution providers could succeed--through partnering and prudent spending--among other strategies.

After the luncheon, top partner executives representing Platinum sponsors IBM, Symantec and Samsung conducted learning sessions with solution-provider CxOs for frank discussions about what their companies are doing to drive channel business. The companies were eager to exchange ideas with solution provider execs for growing their businesses. Other sponsors included APC, Avnet, Oki Data, Novell, Seagate, Sun, Toshiba and Business Objects.

Giuliani Speaks

The cocktail hour soon arrived, a perfect ramp-up for the hotly anticipated keynote by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He did not disappoint the standing-room-only crowd. Focusing his discussion on the qualities of leadership, he told the rapt crowd that leaders are made, not born, and spelled out the steps it takes for a person to turn into a leader.

Then came time for the prestigious VARBusiness 500 Awards. Preceded by brief chats with some event sponsors, 17 solution providers, at the top of their game, were singled out and awarded for exceptional performances in the past year. One of the awards handed out this year was a new one, the VARBusiness 500 Company of the Year. Ciber (No. 63 on this year's list) took home the prize with president and chief executive Mac Slingerland accepting.

Look for additional coverage of the memorable event in a future issue of VARBusiness. Congratulations to all award winners and the entire VARBusiness 500.