2004 ARC: Countdown To Revealing the Winners

Get set for Tuesday's big event -- the prestigious 2004 VARBusiness Annual Report Card (ARC) Awards Dinner -- when this year's winners will be announced. On tap to entertain the crowd will be Colin Quinn. The comedian, who hosts "Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn," a late-night roundtable on Comedy Central that highlights the day's political and cultural events and features four guest comedians, will probably skewer at least a handful of politicians.

Now in its 19th year, the ARC Awards shine a spotlight on the tech companies that, according to their solution providers, offer a best-in-class combination of products, support and partnering.

The awards process began earlier this year when the editors of VARBusiness put 70 different vendor programs under the microscope. The vendors were selected based on market share data from industry analysts. These vendors then provided lists of solution provider partners that were supplemented by VARBusiness.

VARBusiness, along with Answers Research, a Solana Beach, Calif.-based market research and consulting firm, then conducted a survey of close to 5,000 solutions providers and asked them to rate a vendor product or service by giving a numerical ranking to each of 15 criteria that encompassed product innovation, support and partnering opportunities. They also voiced satisfaction and loyalty levels.

Three companies with the highest scores are named as finalists and can rank first in specific categories (read VARBusiness on Oct. 11 for those results), but only one of them (unless there's a tie) grabs the top spot. Scores are weighted by their relative importance, which is determined by regression analysis, and then combined to determine an overall winner.

On Tuesday, VARBusiness will be handing out awards in 18 categories as well as two additional awards -- the Lifetime Achievement Award, which last year went to IBM's Frank Vitigliano, and the Channel Executive of the Year Award, which was awarded to Hewlett-Packard's Kevin Gilroy at our last awards dinner. Who do you think should deserve these awards in 2004? Report back here Wednesday morning for all the results or, better yet, be there and be the first to know.