ARC 2010: Best, Worst Vendors For Partnership

Howdy, Partner

Is your channel partner wonderful with communications, a dream to do business with and a source of plenty of ROI? Or are you always in conflict with its direct sales team, see no further profit potential and have trouble accessing its partner portal?

CRN's 2010 Annual Report Card accounts for all those attributes when it compiles IT vendors' scores. VARs rate vendors' Partner Portals, Solution Provider Programs, Communications, ability to Manage Channel Conflict, Revenue and Profit Potential, ROI and Ease of Doing Business. Here now are the best and worst vendors in Partnership.

Best Vendor For Partnership #5: Kaspersky Labs

Kaspersky's score of 82.0 put it in fifth place in the Partnership subcategory in the Client Security Software (Firewall, Anti-Spam, Anti-Virus) product category. The vendor was rated very highly in the category's Ease of Doing Business criteria. Last year, Kaspersky ranked slightly higher in the Partnership subcategory -- fourth place overall.

Best Vendor For Partnership #4: EMC

EMC, in the Enterprise Network Storage (SAN or NAS) product category earned an 83.4 in the Partnership subcategory, putting it in fourth place among all the ARC vendors for Partnership. In 2009, EMC came in second overall in the Partnership subcategory for its work in the Network Storage product category.

Best Vendor For Partnership #3: SonicWALL

SonicWALL climbed up from tenth place last year in Partnership to third place in 2010. Its overall score of 84.2 in Network Security Appliances was almost eight points greater than in 2009. Contributing to its high score in Partnership was its 92.1 in the Ease of Doing Business criteria.

Best Vendor For Partnership #2: EMC 85.8

EMC's 85.8 in the Partnership subcategory of the Data Protection Software product category just missed the top slot. The vendor did especially well in Revenue and Profit Potential criterion, earning one of the highest scores in the entire report card: 101.9.

Best Vendor For Partnership #1: Fortinet

At number one, Fortinet, in the Network Security Appliances category, scored 86.0, barely edging out EMC. The vendor did especially well in Revenue and Profit Potential. Last year, Fortinet came in third overall for Partnership.

Worst Vendor For Partnership #5: Toshiba

Toshiba's 56.7 is the fifth lowest score for Partnership in the ARC. Most notably, the vendor's poor grades in Return on Investment and Solution Provider Program brought its category score down.

Worst Vendor For Partnership #4: Fujitsu

Fujitsu performed even worse than its Notebooks' competitor, Toshiba, in Partnership, earning a 53.6. Its dismal showing in Solution Partner Program and Partner Portal -- both less than 50 -- dragged down its category score.

Worst Vendor For Partnership #3: Sun/Oracle

In the Enterprise Network Storage (SAN or NAS) category, Sun/Oracle's 48.5 earned them the distinction of third worst Partnership score in the entire ARC. The vendor fared poorly across all the Partnership criteria, but had its worst performance in Ease of Doing Business (40.1).

Worst Vendor For Partnership #2: Oracle

Oracle is in the Midrange (High-End) Servers ($25,000 and above) category by virtue of its purchase of Sun, a vendor that finished at 63.3 in the subcategory last year. Oracle's 47.7 is well below the product category's average of 59.7 for Partnership.

Worst Vendor For Partnership #1: Oracle

Oracle clearly struggled this year in partnership with their server products. In Volume Mainstream Business Servers ($24,999 and below) Oracle's 46.8 earned it last place in Partnership. Among the subcategory criterion, none of its scores cracked 50; its lowest score came in Communication (43.2).