Readers and Editors: IBM, Prologic, Avcom, Reynolds & Reynolds are VAR 500 Stars

Vanguard Award
VARBusiness went in search of a company that represents unqualified leadership. We bestow the award on the industry's single largest solution and services provider, IBM Global Services, an organization that has had a dramatic impact on the industry and changed the nature of the world's largest computing entity.

Mark Elliott, General Manager of IBM Global Services, Americas (left) and editorial director Robert DeMarzo

IBM Global Services
When IBM recently announced strong financials for the first quarter of 2001, it was Big Blue's Global Services consulting unit that took center stage with solid revenue growth and a strong pipeline of engagements related to customers e-business initiatives. In fact, while other integrators continued to miss earnings and report revenue slowdowns, IBM Global Services managed more than $8 billion in revenue growing by more than 20 percent.

Readers' Choice
After carefully selecting this year's crop of best performing companies, we asked our readers to vote on which company they believed had the greatest overall impact on the marketplace. Hundreds upon hundreds of our readers cast their votes from this prestigious list of companies that included large and small players. These companies had outstanding financial results last year and excelled in customer satisfaction. They also demonstrated a knack for leveraging their influence in the marketplace.

IBM Global Services
From June 15 to June 22, VARBusiness.com readers selected our Reader's choice winner. VARBusiness editors selected 50 VARBusiness 500 solution providers that were leaders in particular technologies or industries, and would be well known to our readership. More than 250 votes were cast.VARBusiness then filtered the results by ip address to eliminate spam voting, and the top choice was IBM Global Services.
Mark Elliott, General Manager of IBM Global Services, Americas (left)

Lifetime Achievement Award
The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes one company that has been a member of the VARBusiness 500 community since its inception. This company has steadily grown its business year over year. And it has remained focused on serving the same vertical market for more than 70 years, adapting its business to become a solution provider of integrated information management solutions for the automative retail industry. No. 59 on this year's list with FY 2000 revenue of $924 Million is Reynolds & Reynolds.
Scott Schafer, senior vice president of information structure services (left) and research director Bonnie Markowitz

Editor's Choice Award
The editors of VARBusiness scoured the list of 500 companies with a mission to select one company that embodies the true spirit of innovation of solution providers. We looked for a company that was nimble, possessed superior leadership skills and had a broad impact on the market far beyond its size and scope.

Avcom Technologies
Avcom has been in business for 18 years, enduring many changes. Sales last year totaled $320 million, up from $200 million in 1999.

The company has core competencies in solutions from Sun/Cisco/Veritas/Oracle/Checkpoint/Hitachi. The company is one of Sun's largest resellers and was Sun's first channel partner (1985) and one of Sun's first National Solutions Partner (NSP) designees.

Avcom has posted consistently solid service offerings sticking to core competencies during the over-hyped XSP period of last year. It didn't abandon products like many VAR's/Systems Integrators. The principals believe products are important part of full solutions, along with top shelf engineering talent.
Bob Giles, vice president of business development (left) and managing editor/special reports Karen Franse

Comeback Performance of the Year
Once a solution provider falls off the VARBusiness 500 it is often difficult to climb back into this elite club. Our editors looked for a company that was able to reinvent itself and find its way back onto the list after falling off for a year.

Prologic Management Systems Inc.
If it wasn't for Prologic there would be no 500 in the VARBusiness 500. After finishing 1999 at No. 457 on our VARBusiness 500, with $22 million in revenue, Prologic dropped off as sales eased. This year, the company did what so many others wish they could, regain sales momentum and climb back on the list as,of all numbers,No. 500. With revenues of $35.2 million it sets the bar to enter the 500. As Comeback Performer of the Year, Prologic is the logical choice, having grown its revenue in 2000 by 163 percent.
Matthew Harris, director of strategic technologies (left) and senior executive editor T.C. Doyle

More VARBusiness 500 Awards
The Upper Echelon Club
Executives of the Year
Vertical Limit Awards
Technology Leader Awards
Corporate Climbers