HP, Microsoft, Cisco Win Big As CRN Channel Champs

Held Friday night at CMP Technology's XChange Solution Provider conference, the event marked the 17th anniversary of Channel Champions, one of the largest solution-provider market studies in the industry. And Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Cisco Systems emerged as the big Channel Champs honorees.

In the Channel Champions study, more than 2,000 solution providers rated more than 100 vendors in a total of 27 categories. Four awards were given for each category, including Overall Winner, Technical Criteria, Program and Support Criteria, and Financial Criteria.

HP garnered Channel Champs awards across a range of hardware categories, reflecting the breadth of the vendor's technology and services offerings. HP was named the Overall Winner in the Network Laser Printer, Commercial Desktop PCs, Midrange Servers, Network Storage, Notebooks and SMB/Volume Servers segments.

In addition, HP walked away with Program and Support Criteria and Financial Criteria awards for notebooks, Technical Criteria and Financial Criteria awards for SMB/Volume Servers, Technical Criteria and Financial Criteria awards for SMB Networking Hardware, a Program and Support Criteria award for Storage Management Software and a Program and Support Criteria award for Enterprise Networking Hardware.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft swept the Business Software Suites, Databases/Data Management, E-Mail/Collaboration Software, Infrastructure Integration Software, Network Operating Systems and Systems and Network Management categories. Microsoft also won the coveted Overall Program and Support Criteria and Overall Financial Criteria awards.

Cisco, too, took home a bevy of trophies. The networking giant won the Technical Criteria, Financial Criteria and Overall Winner awards in the Enterprise Networking Hardware category. Cisco also scored Overall winner trophies in Enterprise Networking Hardware, Enterprise Wireless LANs, Network Security Hardware, SMB Wireless LANs and VoIP Technology segments. The vendor also won the Program and Support Criteria and Overall Winner awards for SMB Networking Hardware, as well as the highly competitive award for Overall Technical Criteria.

Other industry stalwarts grabbed their share of Channel Champs awards as well. Symantec snared awards for Technical Criteria and Financial Criteria as well as Overall Winner in the Client and Security Software category. The security software maker also scored a sweep as Overall Winner in the Network Security Software Category and took Technical Criteria, Financial Criteria and Overall Winner honors in the Storage Management Software category.

IBM scored key wins in the SMB/Volume Servers category with awards for Program and Support and Overall Winner. IBM also swept the External Data Backup category.

Lenovo won for Technical Criteria in the Notebooks category, and ViewSonic swept the Flat Panel Displays category and took home the Overall Winner award.

Trend Micro earned a Channel Champs award for Program and Support in the Client Security Software category. Advanced Micro Devices was the Technical Criteria winner in the Client and Server Processors, while Intel won the Program and Support Criteria, Financial Criteria and Overall awards in the same category.

Sweeping the UPS Data Center Power Management category was APC, which took home awards for Technical, Program and Support, Financial and Overall winner. Seagate, too, recorded a category sweep and was recognized as the Overall Winner in Server-Class Disk Drives.