2020 Annual Report Card Winners: Solution Providers Give Top Grades To Key Vendors

For the 35th year, solution providers scored vendors in 24 technology categories based on their performance in product innovation, support, partnership, and managed and cloud services.

Making The Grade

For the 35th year, CRN offered solution providers in North America the opportunity to grade the performance of their IT vendor partners with the CRN Annual Report Card.

Solution providers were asked to score vendors across 24 technology categories, such as cloud storage, converged/hyperconverged infrastructure, industry-standard servers and network security. Partners graded vendors on a total of 21 criteria spanning four categories: product innovation, support, partnership, and managed and cloud services.

In some technology areas a single vendor dominated the scoring, winning top grades across all criteria categories and, in some cases, sweeping all individual criteria. Other technology categories were more competitive with top grades split between two or more vendors with the winning vendor attaining the highest average overall score.

Which IT companies are at the top of their game in the eyes of their channel partners? Read on to find out which vendors earned the highest marks this year.

Cloud Storage: Wasabi Technologies

Channel Chief: Marty Falaro, SVP, Global Sales and Alliances

Cloud storage startup Wasabi has been making waves in the industry as it plays David to industry Goliaths like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, competing on its marketing message of no hidden storage fees or cloud vendor lock-in. The company raised $30 million in a new funding round in May.

As part of the CRN 2020 Top 100 Executives, Wasabi co-founder, President and CEO David Friend was named one of the Top 25 Technology Disrupters.

Wasabi Technologies received an overall ARC score of 83.3 in this competitive technology category. Wasabi had the highest scores in product innovation (87.8), partnership (82.8) and managed and cloud services (86.4). But Veeam just edged out Wasabi in the support category, 75.2 to 75.1, thanks to higher scores for training and marketing support.

Business Intelligence Tools: Nvidia

Channel Chief: Alvin Da Costa, VP, Global Partner Organization

Nvidia has been shaking up the microprocessor industry with its high-performance GPU (graphics processing unit) semiconductors that are increasingly used to power business analytics, data science and machine-learning workloads. There are reports Nvidia is negotiating to acquire chipmaker Arm from its owner, Softbank Group.

As part of the CRN 2020 Top 100 Executives, Nvidia founder, President and CEO Jensen Huang was named among the 25 Most Influential Executives.

Nvidia came out on top in this category with an overall ARC score of 86.0. Nvidia scored 94.5 for product innovation, 84.6 for support, and 78.9 for managed and cloud services. While Nvidia scored highest overall in partnership (84.5), Information Builders scored an impressive 91.3 for ease of doing business.

Collaboration: Poly

Channel Chief: Nick Tidd, VP, Global Channel Sales

Plantronics and Polycom rebranded as Poly last year after the former acquired Polycom for $2 billion. In April the videoconferencing giant completed the merger of the two companies’ channel programs into one highly anticipated partner program for their combined 15,000 partners, including solution providers, service providers and IT distributors.

Poly attained an overall ARC score of 82.0 in this category, racking up scores of 78.6 in support, 85.0 in partnership and 72.7 in managed and cloud services. The company’s impressive 90.1 average score for product innovation included grades of 94.7 for richness of product features and functionality and 93.8 for product marketability.

Converged Or Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: Scale Computing

Channel Chief: Scott Mann, Director, North American Channel

Scale Computing has been changing the way businesses approach computing in the data center, at the edge and in the cloud—and competing with industry giants like VMware—with its HC3 Hypercore software and virtualization technology and appliances that combine servers, storage, hypervisor and backup/disaster recovery in a single system.

As part of the CRN 2020 Top 100 Executives, Scale Computing CEO Jeff Ready was named one of the Top 25 Technology Disrupters.

Scale Computing took top honors in this increasingly important category, achieving an overall ARC score of 92.3. Scale Computing swept the product category with top scores of 94.9 for product innovation, 91.6 for support, 94.4 for partnership and 87.6 for managed and cloud services.

Partners rewarded Scale Computing with a grade of 103.2 for product quality and reliability—one of the highest scores across all technology categories and criteria on the 2020 ARC.

Data Protection Software: Datto

Channel Chief: Rob Rae, SVP, Business Development

Datto provides backup and recovery software, PSA and RMM tools, and other products for MSPs and their SMB customers. Datto may launch an initial public offering later this year or in 2021, according to reports in July that the company had confidentially filed for an IPO that could see the company valued at $1 billion.

Datto came out on top in this highly competitive technology category with an overall ARC score of 86.8, thanks to the company’s top scores for support (84.8) and managed and cloud services (84.1). But Datto and StorageCraft Technology tied in partnership with scores of 86.9.

And while Barracuda had the highest average score (90.9) for all product innovation criteria, Veeam’s partners gave that company very impressive grades for product quality and reliability—103.7, one of the highest scores on this year’s ARC—and richness of product features and functionality at 96.7.

Data Security: Symantec

Channel Chief: Roy Borden, VP Global Partner Sales

One year ago semiconductor manufacturer Broadcom struck a deal to acquire the enterprise security business of Symantec for $10.7 billion with the company’s consumer security business spun off as NortonLifeLock. The acquisition was completed on Nov. 4 with Symantec retaining its name.

Symantec received an overall ARC score of 68.7 in this all-important technology category. That included scores of 74.8 for product innovation, 63.3 for support, 68.3 for partnership and 67.2 for managed and cloud services.

Edge Computing: Scale Computing

Channel Chief: Scott Mann, Director, North American Channel

Technology innovator Scale Computing has been making a name for itself in edge computing with its HC3 Hypercore software, HE150 and HE500 appliances, and HC3 Edge Solutions. In March, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced many to work from home, Scale Computing leveraged virtual desktop infrastructure technology from its alliance with Leostream to allow users to log directly into desktops running in their offices.

Scale Computing made a clean sweep of this category with an overall ARC score of 92.4. Partners gave the company high scores of 96.2 for product innovation (including 105.6 for product quality and reliability, the second-highest grade on this year’s ARC, and 100.1 for product technical innovation), 93.2 for support, 94.4 for partnership and 85.2 for managed and cloud services.

Enterprise Network Storage: Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Channel Chief: Paul Hunter, Worldwide Head of Partner Sales

Channel stalwart Hewlett Packard Enterprise has been a leader in the industry move toward IT-as-a-Service with its GreenLake cloud services and vow to shift the company’s entire product portfolio to an Everything-as-a-Service model by 2022. In July HPE named John Schultz, the company’s chief legal and administrative officer who has led the office overseeing the Everything-as-a-Service initiative, as the company’s new chief operating officer.

HPE received an overall ARC score of 88.4 in this product category. That included grades of 92.9 for product innovation, 86.1 for support, 88.6 for partnership and 85.2 for managed and cloud services.

Enterprise Network Infrastructure: Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

Channel Chief: Donna Grothjan, VP, Worldwide Channels

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, will be expanding its presence in the red-hot SD-WAN arena. In July Hewlett Packard Enterprise struck a deal to acquire Silver Peak, a longtime leader in the fast-growing SD-WAN market segment, for approximately $925 million. HPE plans to combine Silver Peak and its SD-WAN technology with its Aruba networking subsidiary after the acquisition is completed later this year.

Aruba swept the Enterprise Network Infrastructure category with an overall ARC score of 90.7. That included top scores of 95.9 in product innovation (including 101.7 in product quality and reliability), 87.8 in support, 92.2 in partnership and 85.8 in managed and cloud services.

Enterprise Wireless LANs: Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise, company

Channel Chief: Donna Grothjan, VP, Worldwide Channels

Aruba, an HPE company, has positioned itself and its technology portfolio for expected growth in network edge computing, offering technology for connecting devices, protecting endpoints and gathering data from edge systems for business analytics.

As part of the CRN 2020 Top 100 Executives, channel chief Donna Grothjan was named to the list of the Top 25 Channel Sales Leaders.

Partners gave Aruba an overall ARC score of 90.8 for this product category. That included scores of 97.4 for product innovation (including 100.3 for technical innovation), 86.5 for support, 91.5 for partnership and 86.6 for managed and cloud services.

Industry Standard Servers: Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Channel Chief: Paul Hunter, Worldwide Head of Partner Sales

CRN named HPE President and CEO Antonio Neri as its No. 1 Most Influential Executive of 2020, part of the CRN 2020 Top 100 Executives. HPE Worldwide Head of Partner Sales Paul Hunter was named to the Top 100 list among the Top 25 Channel Sales Leaders.

HPE received an overall ARC score of 88.9 from partners in this channel-mainstay product category. That included scores of 94.3 in product innovation (including 100.8 in product quality and reliability), 87.4 in support, 88.9 in partnership and 84.1 in managed and cloud services.

Managed Services Software: RMM/PSA: Datto

Channel Chief: Rob Rae, SVP, Business Development

In July Datto acquired Gluh Pty, an Australia-based developer of a real-time platform that enables MSPs to simplify the procurement of IT products and services for their clients.

As part of the CRN 2020 Top 100 Executives, channel chief Rob Rae was named one of the industry’s Top 25 IT Innovators.

Datto swept this product category with an overall ARC score of 81.5. The company received grades of 86.3 in product innovation, 77.5 in support, 80.0 in partnership and 81.2 in managed and cloud services.

Multifunction Printers: Lexmark

Channel Chief: Sammy Kinlaw, VP Worldwide Channel, OEM Sales

Global imaging solutions company Lexmark has been expanding its technology portfolio to include products that print, secure and manage information. This year the company made its Cloud Print Management system available through its channel partners.

Lexmark was the winner in multifunction printers with an overall ARC score of 80.4, including scores of 77.8 in support, 79.9 in partnership and 80.4 in managed print services. While Lexmark also took the top average score (82.3) in product innovation, rival Xerox came out on top in the product marketability criteria with a score of 78.6.

Network Connectivity: Comcast Business

Channel Chief: Craig Schlagbaum, SVP, Indirect Sales

With the pandemic forcing many people to work from home, Comcast has reported surging demand this year for its high-speed broadband internet, wireless networking and other business services.

As part of the CRN 2020 Top 100 Executives, channel chief Craig Schlagbaum was named one of the industry’s Top 25 Channel Sales Leaders.

Partners gave Comcast Business an overall ARC score of 75.9 in this product category. That included scores of 80.3 in product innovation, 74.9 in support, 78.7 in partnership and 68.8 in managed and cloud services.

Network Security—Enterprise: Fortinet

Channel Chief: Jon Bove, VP, Channel Sales

Fortinet has seen strong demand for its SMB-driven service provider and managed security service provider business this year as the COVID-19 pandemic forces many people to work from home.

Fortinet swept this product category–an impressive feat given that seven vendors were competing. Partners awarded Fortinet an overall ARC score of 90.0, including scores of 94.5 in product innovation, 88.3 for support, 91.3 for partnership, and 84.8 for managed and cloud services.

Network Security–SMB: Fortinet

Channel Chief: Jon Bove, VP, Channel Sales

In July Fortinet acquired cloud security startup Opaq Networks, a move that broadens Fortinet’s technology portfolio to help customers strengthen protection of distributed networks from data centers and branch offices to remote users and Internet of Things devices.

Fortinet faced stiff competition in this product category as well but came out on top with an overall ARC score of 86.6. That included top scores of 85.0 in support, 88.0 in partnership and 80.1 in managed and cloud services. Fortinet also came out on top in product innovation with an average score of 92.1, but rival WatchGuard scored highest in two product innovation criteria: product quality and reliability (101.8) and product compatibility and ease of integration (89.6).

Notebooks/Mobile Computers: Acer America

Channel Chief: Philip Burger, Sr. Director, U.S. Channel

In June Acer America launched its new Enduro line of rugged notebooks and tablets and the new Swift 5 ultrathin and light notebook. At the same time the company expanded its Predator gaming portfolio with new desktops, monitors and accessories.

Acer America received an overall ARC score of 73.6 from partners in this important product category. That included grades of 80.6 for product innovation, 70.3 for support, 75.6 for partnership and 66.4 for managed and cloud services.

Power Protection and Management: Eaton

Channel Chief: Curtiz Gangi, VP, U.S. Channels [Watch Video]

Earlier this year power management technology provider Eaton expanded its data center power distribution and monitoring product portfolio with the acquisition of Power Distribution, a leading supplier of mission-critical power distribution, static switching and power monitoring equipment and services for data centers.

Eaton came out on top in this category with an overall ARC score of 87.0, but it faced stiff competition from APC by Schneider Electric and Tripp Lite. Eaton scored highest overall in product innovation with 90.9, but APC took the top grade in product compatibility and ease of integration (92.2) and Tripp Lite scored highest in services opportunity (83.5). Eaton won overall in support (87.7) despite APC scoring higher in quality of field management (90.5). And Eaton topped the overall partnership scores with a 91.2 average, despite Tripp Lite’s higher grade (87.1) for managing channel conflict.

Eaton and Tripp Lite tied at 77.5 in managed and cloud services and APC outscored both in the specific criteria of the cloud-readiness of its channel program.

Processors: Intel

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

With so many people working from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for desktop, notebook and laptop PCs has surged, driving up demand for Intel’s client processors, including new products like the 10th-generation Intel Core S-series and vPro processors.

As part of the CRN 2020 Top 100 Executives, channel chief Jason Kimrey was named to the list of the Top 25 Channel Sales Leaders.

Intel won this all-important product category with an overall ARC score of 83.9. The chipmaker’s score in the product innovation category was an impressive 95.0, in addition to scores of 80.4 for support, 85.3 for partnership and 72.7 for managed and cloud services. Partners gave Intel a grade of 108.6 in product quality and reliability–the highest grade throughout this year’s entire ARC scoring.

But Nvidia garnered top scores in several specific criteria. Solution providers gave Nvidia an impressive grade of 100.8 in product technical innovation, for example, and high scores of 79.2 in presales support and 72.3 in managing channel conflict.

SD-WAN: Silver Peak Systems

Channel Chief: Ken Marks, VP, Channel Sales

In July Hewlett Packard Enterprise struck a deal to acquire Silver Peak, a longtime leader in the fast-growing SD-WAN market segment, for approximately $925 million. HPE plans to combine Silver Peak and its SD-WAN technology with its Aruba networking subsidiary after the acquisition is completed later this year.

Silver Peak came out on top with an overall ARC score of 88.8. That included top grades of 92.8 in product innovation, 88.2 in support, 90.0 in partnership and 83.4 in managed and cloud services.

But Fortinet was just one point behind with an overall score of 87.8 and received the highest grades in several criteria including 92.8 in product compatibility and ease of integration, 90.2 in revenue and profit potential, and 90.0 in profit margins/profit potential.

Security–Endpoint Protection: Check Point Software Technologies

Channel Chief: Frank Rauch, Head, Worldwide Channel Sales

Check Point Software Technologies CEO Gil Shwed recently told industry analysts that his company plans to leverage the channel much more in the future to help bring in new customers.

As part of the CRN 2020 Top 100 Executives, channel chief Frank Rauch was named to the list of the Top 25 Channel Sales Leaders.

Check Point dominated this product category with an overall ARC score of 83.5. That included scores of 86.0 for product innovation, 80.1 for support, 84.9 for partnership and 82.3 for managed and cloud services.

SonicWall received top grades for specific criteria in this product category including 75.8 for product marketability, 77.1 for its solution provider program and 82.2 for managing channel conflict.

Security Management: Fortinet

Channel Chief: Jon Bove, VP, Channel Sales

As part of the CRN 2020 Top 100 Executives, channel chief Jon Bove was named one of the industry’s Top 25 Channel Sales Leaders.

Fortinet dominated this product category with an overall ARC score of 86.7. That got a boost from the company’s high score for product innovation (92.3), including grades of 97.9 for product quality and reliability, 96.4 for richness of product features/functionality, and 95.4 in product technical innovation.

Fortinet scored 82.9 in support, 88.4 for partnership and 82.3 in managed and cloud services. ConnectWise edged out a win in the consumption-based/subscription pricing criteria with a 76.7 score.

SMB External Storage Hardware: Buffalo Technology

Channel Chief: Bill Rhodes, Director, Channel Sales

Buffalo Americas, the U.S. company of Japan-based Buffalo Technology, recently named Arata Nakamura as the company’s new CEO. Nakamura has been with Buffalo Technology for more than 25 years and was previously chief operating officer at Buffalo Americas.

Buffalo Technology pulled off a clean sweep of this product category with an overall ARC score of 88.8. That included an impressive 93.1 score for product innovation, which got a boost from a 104.2 grade for product quality and reliability–one of the highest scores on this year’s Annual Report Card.

Buffalo scored 88.8 for support, 93.0 for partnership and 79.4 for managed and cloud services.

Workgroup Color Printers: Lexmark

Channel Chief: Sammy Kinlaw, VP Worldwide Channel, OEM Sales

As part of the CRN 2020 Top 100 Executives, channel veteran Sammy Kinlaw was named one of the industry’s Top 25 Channel Sales Leaders.

Lexmark came out on top this year in Workgroup Color Printers with an overall ARC score of 80.3. That included scores of 83.0 for product innovation, 77.7 for support, 79.5 for partnership and 79.2 for managed print services.