Sun And Microsoft Channel Chiefs Presented Top ARC Awards

Gary Grimes, Sun Microsystems' outgoing vice president of U.S. partner management and sales, was presented with the 2004 VARBusiness Lifetime Achievement Award, while Microsoft's Allison Watson, vice president of worldwide partner sales and marketing group, was named Channel Executive of the Year Tuesday night at the gala 2004 VARBusiness Annual Report Card (ARC) awards dinner in Chicago.

Awards were handed out to technology companies that, according to solution providers, offer a best-in-class combination of products, support and partnering in 18 categories.

"The last 32 years have been really exciting...The world has changed a lot," said Grimes, who is soon heading into retirement. "There are two things I've learned that have been driven home in the past three years. The first is the value of partners to a vendor. Not all vendors appreciate the importance of partners, nor do they recognize the value. It's important that you as solution providers bring...the value-add that end users buy.

"The second thing is much more personal," he continued, thanking his Sun team. "I've learned the value of team work...the people who deserve recognition are the ones that make things happen."

Grimes has "completely redesigned his company's channel efforts," said Robert C. DeMarzo, VARBusiness editorial director and CMP vice president, in announcing the award.

For her part, Watson, truly moved and uncharacteristically a bit nervous, said the award "means an incredible amount to me. I want to thank the channel partners that made this possible." She said she was "tremendously excited" about Microsoft's channel future and wanted "to thank my parents, who would be so proud of me."

Robert Faletra, CMP Channel Group president, called Watson "one individual who stands heads and shoulders above the rest. She has emerged as a true channel leader in a very short time [who] manages the largest partner ecosystem in the industry."

Also on hand to wrap up the evening with some old-fashioned insult humor was comedian Colin Quinn, who hosts "Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn," a late-night roundtable on Comedy Central. Talking about the different color badges at XChange, Quinn joked, "If you have a badge that's unmarked, [you're from] Dell."

Of all the vendors, IBM was the bigger winner at the event, winning or sharing a win in eight of the 18 categories. Finishing first in product innovation, support and partnership, as well as being the overall category, the vendor also swept in three of those categories: Data Management Software, Web Infrastructure and Software and Network Storage. In the other four categories, the IBM iSeries was the overall winner in Midrange Servers; IBM also won in Entry Level Servers and shared top honors in Advanced Desktops and Workstations as well as Mobile Computers with Hewlett-Packard.

Among the executives accepting for IBM were Kim Lockwood, director of channel development, Donn Atkins, general manager of IBM Global Business, and Mike Borman, the recently named general manager of iSeries. After accepting an award, Cubs fan Borman and Rob Wright, VARBusiness senior editor, led the audience in a rousing rendition of "Take Me Out To the Ballgame."

There were five other category sweeps during the evening's awards ceremony: Tivoli for Enterprise Storage Management Software, with the award accepted by Mike Gerentine, worldwide director of channel strategy and development; Xerox for Network Color Printers; Samsung for Display Technology; Sprint for Business Class Communications Services (IP, data and voices services), an award received by Mike Werth, director of emerging and midmarket marketing; and Intel for Desktop and Server Processors. Picking up the award for Intel was Steve Dallman, senior director of North American channel and distribution sales and marketing.

Among overall category winners, Cisco came in third, with wins in Networking Infrastructure Solutions, Business Class Wireless LANs, and a shared win with Computer Associates in Security Management Software. Chuck Robbins, Cisco vice president of U.S. channels, accepted awards for the company.

Among other overall winners, Microsoft won in the Server Operating Systems category, with the award accepted by Allison Watson. Maxtor won in the Enterprise Disk Drives category; and SonicWall, receiving one of the highest scores, took home the honors in the Security Appliances category, an award accepted by Dave Crilley, channel marketing director.

In addition to vendors receiving recognition for overall category wins, more than 50 companies were honored in the specific subcategories of product innovation, support and partnership. Among those award winners were Computer Associates for the Security Management Software category, which won the support and partnership categories; HP, which won the support and partnership categories and shared the product innovation category (as well as the overall category winner prize) in Mobile Computers; and Enterasys, which took home support and partnership awards in the Business Class Wireless LANs category.

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