Annual Report Card Winners Crowned

VARBusiness presented its Annual Report Card awards at Breakaway XChange Thursday night, singling out some industry veterans and surprising newcomers with top honors.

Dell Computer proved the surprise winner in the client hardware category, while IBM Corp. and Allaire Corp. dominated the software side.

The ARC is the definitive guide to the best vendors--as rated by their own solution provider partners. In our 15th annual ARC, some 3,000 solution providers were surveyed about 74 vendor programs across 12 product categories.

Dell leveraged its strong ratings in the products and pricing area of the client survey to beat runner-up Apple Computer Inc. (Clients is a new category that combines the traditional desktop and notebook categories.) Last year, Hewlett-Packard captured desktops, while Apple and Acer tied in notebooks.

On the software side, IBM won in database software; Allaire grabbed a win in the new enterprise development tools category; and the two companies shared the gold in Internet Software.

Among hardware categories, other winners included Compaq (in entry-level servers), IBM (midrange servers), Cisco (networking infrastructure), Viewsonic (display technology) and Western Digital (storage systems).

In the software area, other winners were Computer Associates (systems management software), Microsoft (operating platforms) and Network Associates (security software).

Gone from the winner's circle were such old favorites as Hewlett-Packard, which won four survey categories last year and Sun, which won two in 1999.

Find more news from Breakaway XChange and more on the winning companies on our Annual Report Card page.