2008 VARBusiness Annual Report Card: What's The Score?

Intel scored an overall 79 and beat AMD by at least 12 points in all three ARC criteria -- product innovation, support and partnership. Intel also bested AMD in all 17 subcategories of the ARC survey. [read more]

As the emerging 2008 VARBusiness Annual Report Card survey champion in Client Security Software, Kaspersky Lab rose head and shoulders above many of its competitors, acing the product innovation subcategory with an overall score of 85, boosted by a 98 in the criteria of product quality and reliability and a 91 in compatibility and ease of integration. [read more]

IBM, which lost the top spot in 2007, regained the lead this year after beating out rivals Microsoft and Oracle in partnership and channel support. Scores for IBM, Oracle and Microsoft have been close for years in this category. This year was no different with IBM's overall ARC score of 65 barely edging out the score of 62 channel partners gave to Oracle and Microsoft. [read more]

For the sixth year in a row, Samsung Electronics has snared the No.1 spot among display vendors this year in the 2008 VARBusiness Annual Report Card survey. The company won the top spot in all three subcategories -- product innovation, support and partnership -- despite NEC's 105 in product quality and reliability. [read more]

This year, for the first time, the 2008 VARBusiness Annual Report Card survey has included a Middleware category. And channel partners gave almost equal bottom-line scores to the three major middleware suppliers: IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, which scratched out a narrow victory, due to its superiority in middleware technology. [read more]

Bolstered by high marks for revenue and profit potential and managing channel conflict, Hewlett-Packard walked away with the VARBusiness Annual Report Card (ARC) award in the Midrange (high-end) Servers ($25,000 and above) category. Noteably, HP scored an 80 in revenue and profit potential compared with a 75 for IBM, a 69 for Dell and a 65 for Sun. [read more]

For the second consecutive year, Juniper Networks took top honors from solution providers. But this year, Juniper is sharing the spotlight with SonicWalL which tied with Juniper for the top spot. SonicWall won for product innovation, edging out Juniper when it comes down to product quality and reliability, richness of product features/functionality, technical innovation and compatibility and ease of integration. The pair tied for product marketability, and Juniper earned first place for services opportunities around its network security appliances. [read more]

Trend Micro took top honors in the category due to the success of a variety of products, in particular its Worry Free line. Nearest ARC competitor Websense also fared well in product innovation, driven by a high score of 86 in the subcategory of product quality and innovation. Websense's scores fell short, however, in some subcategories of support and partnership. [read more]

EMC earned the top score in the product innovation, support, and partnership subcategories, but they also gave the vendor a clean sweep of all 18 criteria in the survey, making it one of only three companies to get the No. 1 spot in all 18 criteria -- and the only company to do so in two categories. [read more]

Cisco won first-place finishes in all product innovation and support criteria, and came out first in five out of seven partnership criteria. The networking powerhouse's strength in product innovation helped it carry the day. Cisco's largest margin of victory was for the marketability criterion, where it bested its closest rival, Juniper, by 10 points. [read more]

Toshiba was a runaway winner when it came to the subcategories of support and partnership, where the company was ranked the best in its category for everything from presales support and training to managing channel conflict and delivering ROI. It only came in second (in a tie with Lenovo) to Panasonic in the postsales support criteria. [read more]

The progress Cisco made during the past 12 months placed it ahead of some tough competition, including Adtran and Hewlett-Packard, which finished second and third, respectively. According to the channel partners surveyed, the results showed that Cisco's channel commitment proved the company is always working to improve its products, support for partners and channel partner programs. [read more]

Solution providers gave EMC the highest overall mark in all 18 criteria in the survey, and as a result, the vendor dominated the Storage Management Software category, beating second-place finishers Hewlett Packard and IBM by nearly 20 points, one of the highest winning margins in the entire survey. The vendor has seemingly achieved its goal of becoming one of the leading storage software vendors, and to be known as a channel-friendly vendor partner. [read more]

Novell, up against such industry heavyweights as Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, took top scores this year in Systems and Network Management Software, the first time that technology has been a category in the VARBusiness Annual Report Card. Novell and its ZENworks systems management, configuration management and end-point security management software was ranked first by channel partners in the subcategories of product innovation, support and partnership. [read more]

Cisco continued its dominance in the VoIP category by again snagging the coveted top spot, a position Cisco has held since it was first included four years ago. When it comes to product innovation, support and partnership, Cisco was the runaway favorite, earning first-place nods under each subcategory and criteria, except for product compatibility and ease of integration, where it was ranked No. 2 behind D-Link. [read more]

HP managed to nail this category by merely one point -- thanks largely to its scores in the product innovation subcategory. Solution providers rated HP tops in quality and reliability, richness of product features/functionality, technical innovation, compatibility and ease of integration and marketability. [read more]

Cisco handily beat out its rivals, garnering a clean sweep of all 18 product innovation, support and partnership criteria. Cisco's most decisive victory came in the support subcategory, where its overall score bested its closest rivals by 10 points. IT also distinguished itself with a strong showing in the product innovation subcategory, particularly in criteria such as services opportunity and technical innovation. [read more]

Buoyed by excellent scores in quality and reliability, Xerox took the No. 1 slot overall in the Workgroup Color Printers category of the 2008 VARBusiness Annual Report Card survey for the second year in a row. Earlier this year, Xerox said it was intent on accelerating the adoption of color printing in office environments through new and improved technologies. Xerox ranked highest with a score of 81 in the product innovation subcategory, took top honors in the marketability criteria and scored tops in the area of technical innovation. [read more]