2019 Annual Report Card Winners: Solution Providers Give Top Grades To Key Vendors

For the 34th year, solution providers scored vendors in 23 product categories based on their performance in product innovation, support, partnership, and managed and cloud services.

High Achievers

For the 34th year, CRN offered solution providers in North America the opportunity to grade the performance of their IT vendor partners as part of the CRN Annual Report Card.

Solution providers scored vendors in 23 technology categories based on their performance across four criteria: product innovation, support, partnership, and managed and cloud services. Vendors also received an overall average score in each technology category.

Some vendors are dominant in technology categories and are repeat winners from previous years. Other technology categories are very competitive with new winners taking the lead. Which companies are at the top of their game in the view of their partners? Read on to find out which vendors earned the highest marks this year.

Collaboration: Cisco Systems

Channel Chief: Oliver Tuszik, SVP, Global Partner Organization

Cisco's collaboration lineup includes unified communications, contact center, conferencing and collaboration endpoint products. The company disclosed a plan to unify its on-premises and cloud-based collaboration portfolio, giving users a consistent experience across both environments.

Cisco received an impressive 87.8 score in product innovation, followed by scores of 76.2 in support, 78.9 in partnership, and 74.8 in managed and cloud services, leading to an overall score of 79.8.

Converged/Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: Scale Computing

Channel Chief: Dave Hallmen, Chief Revenue Officer

Scale Computing is a rising star in the market for hyper-converged infrastructure, virtualization and edge computing technologies. The company expects revenue to triple this year after recruiting 150 net-new channel partners over the past year.

Scale Computing's 89.3 overall score is particularly impressive given that it is competing against Dell Technologies (overall score of 86.7), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (overall score of 85.0) and VMware (overall score of 74.5) in this category. Scale Computing beat them all with top scores in product innovation (92.8), support (87.3), partnership (91.3), and managed and cloud services (85.3).

Data Protection Software: Datto

Channel Chief: Rob Rae, VP, Business Development

Datto has transformed itself from its storage-focused roots to become a supplier of networking, business continuity, data backup and security services.

Datto received an overall score of 88.1, topping such industry giants such as StorageCraft (overall score of 84.0), Dell Technologies (overall score of 83.7) and Veeam (overall score of 83.2). Datto swept the field with top scores for product innovation (92.4), support (85.4), partnership (88.2), and managed and cloud services (85.6).

Data Security: Sophos

Channel Chief: Kendra Krause, VP, Global Channels

Sophos, a provider of next-generation endpoint and data security technology, is traditionally a high scorer in the Annual Report Card and 2019 is no different.

Sophos received an overall score of 90.7, putting it far ahead of rivals McAfee (overall score of 77.9), Symantec (overall score of 77.7) and Imperva (overall score of 75.5). Sophos also ran the table with top scores in all subcategories including product innovation (93.1), support (89.6), partnership (93.7), and managed and cloud services (86.0).

Desktop And Server Virtualization: Scale Computing

Channel Chief: Dave Hallmen, Chief Revenue Officer

As with converged/hyper-converged infrastructure, Scale Computing is changing the game in the all-important desktop and server virtualization space, where the company received an overall score of 91.3 versus the 79.3 overall score earned by industry heavyweight VMware.

Scale Computing outpaced the competition across all subcategories with top scores in product innovation (a very impressive 95.9), support (89.0), partnership (93.5), and managed and cloud services (85.7).

Endpoint Security: Sophos

Channel Chief: Kendra Krause, VP, Global Channels

Sophos' impressive performance in the 2019 Annual Report Card scoring continued in the highly competitive endpoint security technology arena with an overall score of 91.1, beating rivals Bitdefender (overall score of 84.4), Symantec (overall score of 80.5), McAfee (overall score of 77.7), Carbon Black (overall score of 76.9) and SonicWall (overall score of 76.6).

Sophos swept the subcategories with a 94.7 score for product innovation, 87.6 for support, 93.4 for partnership, and 88.0 for managed and cloud services.

Enterprise Network Storage: Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Channel Chief: Paul Hunter, Worldwide Channel Chief

Hewlett Packard Enterprise came out on top in what was one of the most closely competitive technology categories in this year's Annual Report Card. HPE received an overall score of 84.9, beating out Pure Storage (overall score of 84.4) and Dell Technologies (overall score of 84.1).

HPE also won the product innovation (90.6), and managed and cloud services (79.3) subcategories.

Enterprise Networking Infrastructure: Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

Channel Chief: Donna Grothjan, VP, Worldwide Channels

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, was the clear winner in the enterprise networking infrastructure category with an overall score of 88.6, significantly ahead of competitors Cisco (overall score of 81.7), Dell Technologies (overall score of 79.1) and Extreme Networks (overall score of 78.6).

Aruba's win was a clean sweep with top scores in product innovation (a very impressive 96.1), support (86.0), partnership (88.7), and managed and cloud services (82.1).

Enterprise Wireless LANs: Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

Channel Chief: Donna Grothjan, VP, Worldwide Channels

Aruba's Annual Report Card performance was even more indomitable in the enterprise wireless LAN category with an overall score of 89.0, compared with overall scores earned by Cisco (82.0), Extreme Networks (78.2) and Ruckus Networks, an Arris company (75.3).

Aruba scored 96.5 for product innovation—a tie for the highest of any overall or subcategory score in this year's ARC. Aruba also beat the competition with its scores for support (86.9), partnership (89.5), and managed and cloud services (81.8).

Industry-Standard Servers: Dell Technologies

Channel Chief: Joyce Mullen, President, Global Channels, OEM, IoT Solutions

In a battle of the industry giants, Dell Technologies beat Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the all-important industry-standard server category with an overall score of 85.5 to HPE's 82.7.

Dell swept the subcategories here with top scores for product innovation (91.1), support (84.1), partnership (85.8), and managed and cloud services (79.9).

Multifunction Printers: HP Inc.

Channel Chief: Stephanie Dismore, VP, GM, Americas Channels

In another hotly contested product category, HP Inc. defeated Xerox in multifunction printers, receiving an overall score of 74.2 to Xerox's 73.6.

HP scored higher in product innovation (83.3), partnership (71.1), and managed and cloud services (75.3).

Network Connectivity: Comcast

Channel Chief: Craig Schlagbaum, VP, Indirect Channels

Telecommunications conglomerate and media giant Comcast owns a broad portfolio of services including its Xfinity cable service, as well as internet, broadband and VoIP services for businesses.

Comcast received an overall score of 69.1 from solution providers, including scores of 72.6 for product innovation, 67.3 for support, 71.9 for partnership, and 64.0 for managed and cloud services.

Network Security–Enterprise: Fortinet

Channel Chief: Jon Bove, VP, Channel Sales

Fortinet offers a broad portfolio of network, application and endpoint security products and services. Its FortiGate next-generation firewall is a hit among customers looking to protect their SD-WAN installations.

Fortinet received an overall score of 87.3 in this technology category, beating a raft of competitors including Aruba, an HPE company (overall core of 84.0), Imperva (overall score of 77.5), WatchGuard (overall score of 77.1), McAfee (overall score of 76.9) and SonicWall (overall score of 75.8).

Fortinet received the highest scores across all subcategories including product innovation (93.1), support (85.4), partnership (87.9), and managed and cloud services (81.6).

Network Security–SMB: Sophos

Channel Chief: Kendra Krause, VP, Global Channels

Sophos is the clear winner in the small- and midsize-business segment of network security, receiving an overall score of 90.9 compared with Fortinet's 84.3, WatchGuard's 81.5 and SonicWall's 76.4.

Sophos received a score of 96.5 for product innovation—tied for the highest of any overall or subcategory score in this year's ARC. The company also beat its rivals with scores of 88.2 for support, 92.8 for partnership, and 85.1 for managed and cloud services.

Notebooks/Mobile Computers: Dell Technologies

Channel Chief: Joyce Mullen, President, Global Channels, OEM, IoT Solutions

This was a close match between Dell Technologies and Lenovo,with Dell coming out on top with an overall score of 83.2 to Lenovo's 82.4. HP Inc. was third with an overall score of 68.9.

The company came out on top in support (82.1), and managed and cloud services (75.7).

Power Protection And Management: APC by Schneider Electric

Channel Chief: Shannon Sbar, VP, Channels, North America

APC by Schneider Electric came out on top in this all-important technology category this year, receiving an overall score of 88.9 to Eaton's 86.1 and Tripp Lite's 82.5.

Solution providers gave APC by Schneider Electric a clean sweep of the subcategories this year: The company scored an impressive 94.2 in product innovation and received scores of 89.9 in support, 92.6 in partnership, and 78.0 in managed and cloud services.

Processors: Intel

Channel Chief: Jason Kimrey, GM, U.S. Channel Scale, Partners

Intel has been moving beyond its traditional focus on PC-centric chip products to concentrate on data-centric semiconductor technology. Earlier this year the company named Bob Swan to be its new CEO, the seventh person in the semiconductor maker's 50-year history to hold the post.

Intel's strength is clearly its technology: The company received an impressive 95.4 score in product innovation, one of the highest in this year's Annual Report Card. That was followed by scores of 75.3 in support, 81.9 in partnership, and 68.8 in managed and cloud services, giving the company an overall score of 81.1.

SD-WAN: Fortinet

Channel Chief: Jon Bove, VP, Channel Sales

SD-WAN is one of the hottest technology areas in the IT industry, and Fortinet right now is leading some pretty big competitors in the Annual Report Card. The company came out on top with an overall score of 84.9 to Cisco's 79.0 and Comcast's 77.1.

Fortinet swept this category with scores of 90.1 in product innovation, 81.6 in support, 85.7 in partnership, and 81.4 in managed and cloud services.

Security Management: Fortinet

Channel Chief: Jon Bove, VP, Channel Sales

Fortinet was also the runaway winner in the security management technology category with an overall score of 85.2, putting it significantly ahead of rivals Imperva (overall score 7of 7.5), RSA (overall score of 76.4) and McAfee (overall score of 76.2).

Fortinet swept this category as well with scores of 90.2 in product innovation, 83.2 in support, 85.6 in partnership, and 80.8 in managed and cloud services.

SMB External Storage Hardware: Buffalo Americas

Channel Chief: Bill Rhodes, Director, Channel Sales

In a close contest, Buffalo Americas (overall score of 87.1) edged out Dell Technologies (overall core of 86.8) in this technology category with Hewlett Packard Enterprise coming in third (overall score of 83.3).

Buffalo Americas also took the top scores in support (86.3) and partnership (91.4).

SMB Networking: Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

Channel Chief: Donna Grothjan, VP, Worldwide Channels

This was another hotly contested technology category with Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, coming out on top with an overall score of 87.0. The company had its subcategory-winning high score in product innovation (92.9) to thank for the win.

Datto had an overall score of 86.6 in the category, followed by Dell Technologies with an overall core of 84.6 and Ruckus Networks, an Arris company, with an overall score of 80.4.

Tablets: Dell Technologies

Channel Chief: Joyce Mullen, President, Global Channels, OEM, IoT Solutions

Dell was the clear winner in this technology category with an overall score of 81.1, followed by Lenovo (overall score of 77.6) and HP Inc. (overall score of 75.6).

Dell ran the table across all subcategories, receiving the highest scores for product innovation (85.7), support (80.4), partnership (83.0), and managed and cloud services (74.4).

Workgroup Color Printers: Xerox

Channel Chief: John Reilly, VP, Velocity Channels Group, U.S. Channels Unit

This last category was a close match, with Xerox (overall score of 75.5) edging out HP Inc. (overall score of 74.5).

Xerox took the top scores in support (70.0), and managed print services (78.0).