What Makes Winners Tick

The ARC methodology, because of its scope and depth, leaves vendors no room to hide when solution providers grade them on product innovation, support and partnership criteria. Within each of those broad subcategories, solution providers gave separate grades for a total of 18 criteria, ranging from product quality and reliability, postsales support and ease of doing business, among others.

Solution providers are also asked to rate the importance of each of the 18 criteria, which are then given a weighted number based on solution provider responses. Then the votes are tallied much like an Olympic diving event to determine the final score for each subcategory, which is then tabulated to determine the ARC winners.

Sound complicated? Not really. Vendors hoping to win an ARC trophy simply need great products coupled with solid channel support programs to come out on top.

While VARs rated product quality and reliability as the most import criteria in evaluating vendors, followed closely by revenue and profit potential, ease of doing business and postsales support ranked as the third and fourth most important qualities solution providers look for in their vendor partners.

"When we evaluate a vendor, we look first at the quality of the technology," said Chris Ferry, executive vice president of Technology Integration Group, a San Diego-based solution provider. "You have to have a product that the customer is going to be happy with."

While Ferry's views are shared by most VARs, having the complete package of product quality, sales support and channel program are what help push ARC winners to the top.

Alex Allidina, director of sales and marketing at Data Agility Group, a Carrollton, Texas-based storage solution provider, agrees that technology is paramount when evaluating a vendor partner, but channel programs and support are important as well. "Channel programs are secondary; technology and what they offer, what we think we can sell, what people are looking for--that is what comes first."

But he said that smart companies can leverage their channel programs and incentives to attract the interest of solution provider partners. "Channel programs and incentives can lure us in, but the technology must be worth it or the channel program is useless," Allidina said, noting that his company's primary vendor partners are Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., VMware Corp., Palo Alto, Calif. and FalconStor Software Inc., Melville, N.Y.

Some of the best in the ARC did, in fact, leverage their channel programs to come out on top. After an absence of several years from the ARC stage, Toshiba Corp., Tokyo, made a comeback with its Satellite lineup of notebooks and snared the ARC Company of the Year award for Notebooks and Mobile Computers. Toshiba pulled off the win over rivals Dell Inc., Round Rock, Texas, Hewlett-Packard Co., Palo Alto, Calif. and Lenovo, Morrisville, N.C., on the strength of its support and partnership scores. While it ranked third in the product innovation ratings, Toshiba won the support and partnership subcategories to make it the overall winner in Notebooks.

Next: Support and Partnership

That same scenario played out in the Data and Information Management Software category, where IBM Corp., Armonk, N.Y., won the ARC Company of the Year award on the strength of its partnership and support scores. While IBM ranked second in product innovation scores, it won the support and partnership categories boosting it to the overall win.

But if vendors expect to win the ARC races, they would be wise to come to the table with a total package of product innovation, support and partnership.

Storage powerhouse EMC Corp., Hopkinton, Mass., which made a commitment to turn itself into a channel-friendly hardware and software vendor, saw that strategy pay off as it garnered two ARC Company of the Year awards for Storage Management Software and Network Storage. In Network Storage, for example, EMC showed that the best way to capture the hearts and minds of solution providers is to build great products supported by strong channel programs. The storage vendor swept every product, support and partnership criteria on its way to its win in Network Storage. And for an encore, EMC repeated the fete in winning every category and subcategory in the Storage Management Software arena.

EMC's scores and those of processor king Intel Corp., Santa Clara, Calif., show how having strength at all positions leads to an ARC win. Both companies were the only ones to rank first outright in all categories and subcategories in which they competed. As a result, EMC outpaced its next closest rival, HP, in the Storage Management Software category by 18 points and beat runner-up Network Appliance Inc. in Network Storage by 12 points. Intel, for its part, bested runner-up AMD by 14 points for the overall win in Client and Server Processors.

By contrast, categories where vendors showed strength in some subcategories and weakness in others produced some of the tightest races. In Client Security Software, for example, Kaspersky Lab, Woburn, Mass., was the top overall rated vendor with a weighted total of 78 points, edging out Sophos Inc., Lynnfield, Mass., and Trend Micro Inc., Cupertino, Calif.

A drilldown of the most closely contested category in the 2008 ARC showed Kaspersky won the product innovation subcategory while finishing third and tying for second respectively in the support and partnership areas. Sophos, for its part, tied for second with Trend Micro in the product innovation and partnership categories and finished second by itself in the support arena. Trend Micro won the support and partnership areas.

That no single vendor dominated Client Security Software can be traced to Kaspersky Lab's relatively low marks in solution provider program and managing channel conflict; Trend Micro's stumble in ROI and ease of doing business; and Sophos' hiccup in services opportunity, marketing support and revenue and profit potential.

Solution providers say that beefing up channel sales and support activities, in fact, can make the difference for those vendors hoping to gain an edge on competitors.

"I look for partners that are willing to build a good relationship with us," said Brian Deeley, manager of Graymar Business Solutions in Timonium, Md. "Loyalty is a two-way street."