Bright Lights, Big Winners

Monitors raced across a giant screen at Internet speed, crashing together in an explosion of fireballs and sparks. A voice belted out, "Are you ready for some business? Are you ready for VARBusiness?" The 15th Annual Report Card awards ceremony had begun.

More than 400 vendors, partners and solution providers gathered at the San Diego Convention Center on Sept. 28 to honor the ARC winners on an evening where the live pyrotechnics were just the beginning of the excitement. The event, which began with dinner and an onstage multimedia display, left the audience laughing as attendees exited a performance by comedian Kevin James and retired to an adjacent lounge for martinis and dessert.

James, star of the hit sitcom "King of Queens," entertained guests with his stand-up routine following the awards ceremony. James tickled the audience by describing the subtle differences between men and women when it comes to buying gift cards, and lamented humorously on his failed attempts at waterskiing and weight loss,not to mention computers, which, he quipped, are a fad. "They'll never catch on," he joked.

The ARC dinner capped off three jam-packed days of keynotes, roundtables and events at the annual Breakaway XChange conference, co-sponsored by CMP Media and the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA).

The theme for the week was the importance of partnerships. "We're restructuring our channel program and attracting new partners," said Bluestone software director Dennis Fisher. "That's a big reason why we're here [at Breakaway XChange]."

Many vendors and solution providers spent the week meeting newcomers to the annual event, with an eye toward expanding their channel programs. Companies mixed, mingled and branched out during conferences, seminars and a beach bash held on nearby Embarcadero Island.

Patricia Meacham, vice president of marketing for IBM's PartnerWorld, unveiled the new look of the PartnerWorld programs at a "world premiere" event. The event focused on IBM's efforts to consolidate its many programs for its 95,000 partners worldwide under a simplified, single umbrella that partners will find easier to understand and navigate.

Meacham told the audience that IBM expects total IT spending will reach almost $2 trillion by 2005, and more than $1 trillion of that will be earmarked for e-business. "The opportunity is enormous," she said, adding that IBM would be there to "not only help you sell in the U.S. today, but%85take you global."

IBM was honored with the ARC Lifetime Achievement Award for its notable scores in a variety of product categories during the 15-year history of the ARC awards. IBM was singled out, not only for the number of awards it has received in the competition over the years, but also for improvement of its scores in recent years as it strengthened a variety of channel and support programs.

"This award is given out in recognition of outstanding performance in the ARC over a long period of time, across a wide assortment of survey categories," said Robert DeMarzo, VARBusiness' editorial director. "IBM had a somewhat difficult time in the early years of the competition, but over the last five years, its performance has improved tremendously across-the-board."

Another big winner for the evening was newcomer Allaire, which beat out such established software companies as Borland/Inprise, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Sybase to win the Breakthrough Player Award, given for the first time this year. Allaire was chosen on the basis of its strong ratings by survey participants. Solution providers gave the company dominant scores in the ARC survey for product availability, revenue/profit potential, communication, channel strategy and ease of doing business.

Look for the complete Annual Report Card issue online Monday.