Remarkable Arrivals

The awards dinner featured the industry's veterans, dressed in their finery and raising glasses to old friends and competitors amid the understated splendor of a St. Louis conference center. But when the stage lights came up and the house music blared, the 2006

VARBusiness Annual Report Card (ARC) awards ceremony became a true debutantes' ball.

Three of the 19 category winners honored at the August event earned first-place awards, the best showing out of the gate for new vendors in more than a decade of ARC honors. Western Digital, Network Appliance and Ricoh made the most of their debut appearances at the event by taking the top spot in their respective categories (Enterprise Disk Drives, Network Storage and Network Color Printers).

And they did it with a solid blend of technology innovation and channel support, and by engendering the kind of partner loyalty that made the difference for most on this year's ARC.

Ricoh came out on top for its first time in the ARC Network Color Printers category, earning an overall score of 79 out of 100, 6 points above the category average. The story was much the same in Enterprise Disk Drives, where Western Digital made its first ARC appearance in this category with a score of 75, 4 points above the average managed by its peers.

But the biggest margin of victory for a newcomer was reserved for the ARC belle of the ball--NetApp--which bested perennial Network Storage category stalwarts Hewlett-Packard, IBM and market leader EMC with an overall score of 76, a full 7 points above the average score in the category.

"We've always focused on building long-term partner relationships based on trust and integrity," says Leonard Iventosch, vice president of Americas channel sales at NetApp. "This recognition validates the VIP Program and the resellers that have chosen NetApp as their strategic partner."

Indeed, NetApp has become a study in creative relationships that wow partners and users alike. Earlier this year, the vendor inked a deal with ISV Syncsort Incorporated Software to integrate Syncsort Backup Express with NetApp's NearStore Virtual Tape Library to create disk-based data protection that works with open-system data centers.

That combo has given solution provider Insight Investments a powerful and lucrative set of options for its users, according to Scott Gelb, senior systems engineer at the VAR.

"We recommend NetApp and Syncsort for our customers that require continuous data protection. Syncsort's OSSV, combined with NetApp's SnapMirror, provides disaster recovery, business continuance and reduction or elimination of tape in one solution," Gelb says. "With NetApp and Syncsort, we can deliver instant availability in case of an outage for SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange customers."

It's that kind of delivery that won over partners who gave NetApp a stellar 81 in Product Innovation and a whopping 85 in Loyalty in a survey where the average scores landed at 73 and 78, respectively. And when it came to presales and postsales support, and technical and marketing help, NetApp also wowed partners to the tune of 67 points, well above the category average of 62, for overall support.

"NetApp Syncsort and Insight have a long history of partnership, [and] we have more than 60 joint customers. This past summer, we engaged in a very successful joint seminar tour across North America," says Matthew Neally, senior vice president of Insight. "NetApp and Syncsort aggressively drive business through the channel, and as a STAR partner, we actively participate in bringing these leading solutions to our prospects and customers. Both Syncsort and NetApp have great channel-focused internal marketing programs."

NEXT: What Ricoh and Western Digital did right.

When it came to scoring a win in their first ARC appearance, Ricoh executives pointed to their scores across the Network Color Printers category, saying the win was a result of broad channel initiatives, as well as an effort to target resellers seeking complete solution sets.

"Ricoh's products and solution offerings help our partners generate new opportunities and help businesses work more effectively and productively," says Ann Moser, senior vice president of the Printing Solutions Division at Ricoh. "This award is a testament to Ricoh's ability to provide product innovation, strong partner relationships, outstanding support and dedicated loyalty to our strategic partners.

"This is the first year that Ricoh has competed," Moser adds. "To be selected as a winner by our solution-provider partners provides us with a great sense of accomplishment."

As for Western Digital, which had competed in the past--but in the since-discontinued Entry-Level Hard Drives category--execs say the vendor's victory in Enterprise Disk Drives is an endorsement of its efforts to focus on the channel with a number of new partner-facing initiatives.

"Detailed feedback from our integration and reseller partners, such as what we've heard through the ARC award program, is the core of our SelectWD program: listening to customers," says Stacy Hand, senior director of worldwide channels at Western Digital.

"Everything we do to serve our partners is designed to make it easy for them to do business with Western Digital," Hand says. "From our Advanced RMA service, which speeds service to their customers, to our SelectWD Web portal, which streamlines access to product and service literature as well as the process for selecting the right Western Digital product for their applications. Our goal is to make it easy for integration and reseller partners to deliver Western Digital's quality and reliability to their customers."