2022 Annual Report Card Winners: Solution Providers Give Top Grades To Key Vendors
For the 37th year, solution providers scored vendors across 25 technology categories based on their performance in product innovation, support, partnership, and managed and cloud services. Here’s a roundup of the companies with the highest overall scores.
Making The Grade
For the 37th 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.
The CRN ARC provides a look at which IT vendors are doing the best jobs – and which ones have work to do – in meeting their partners’ needs in terms of products, support, partner program resources and other critical criteria that determine the success or failure of a vendor-solution provider relationship.
The winners of this year’s ARC project are being announced in conjunction with the XChange August 2022 conference, being held this week in Denver, put on by The Channel Company, CRN’s parent company.
Solution providers scored vendors across 25 product technology categories. These include longtime channel technology mainstays such as industry standard servers, laptops and mobile devices, enterprise network storage hardware, and enterprise and SMB network security. It also includes newer technology areas such as hyperconverged infrastructure, hybrid cloud, SD-WAN and edge computing.
Partners graded IT vendors on a total of 21 criteria spanning four categories: product innovation, support, partnership, and managed and cloud services. Companies received average scores for each criteria category and an overall score for the technology category. Details can be found on the following slides.
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.
Annual Report Card Criteria And Scoring
Solution providers graded IT vendors according to 21 criteria across four categories:
Product innovation criteria: product quality and reliability, richness of product features and functionality, product technical innovation, product compatibility and ease of integration, marketability, and services opportunity.
Support criteria: pre-sales support, post-sales support, training, quality of field management, and marketing support.
Partnership criteria: solution provider programs, communication, managing channel conflict, revenue and profit potential, and ease of doing business.
Managed and cloud services criteria: consumption-based and subscription pricing, integration with services management tools, cloud-readiness of channel program, field teaming and channel compensation alignment, and profit margins and profit potential.
In some technology areas a single vendor dominated the scoring, winning not just the top overall score, but also the average grades across all four criteria categories and, in some cases, even sweeping all 21 criteria.
In other technology categories two or more vendors split the results with different vendors scoring highest for different criteria categories – and in some cases even splitting the highest scores within criteria categories.
In the highly competitive enterprise network storage management segment, for example, one vendor scored highest across all product innovation criteria. But in partnership criteria, one vendor received the top score for solution provider program, another scored highest in communication and managing channel conflict, and a third took top scores for revenue/profit potential and ease of doing business.
Cloud Storage: Pure Storage
Channel Executive: Wendy Stusrud, VP, Global Partner Sales
Pure Storage topped the cloud storage technology category with an overall score of 86.9.
The company, in fact, swept the category with highest scores across all criteria including 90.5 in product innovation, 82.1 in support, 87.7 in partnership, and 86.7 in manages and cloud services.
Pure’s highest criteria grade from partners was 101.6 for product quality and reliability, part of the product innovation criteria.
Converged/Hyperconverged Infrastructure: Scale Computing
Channel Executive: Kyle Fenske, Director, North American Channel
This was one of two product categories in which Scale Computing received top scores this year on the Annual Report Card.
Scale Computing swept the converged/hyperconverged infrastructure category with the highest scores in all criteria and receiving an overall score of 91.5.
The company received scores of 94.1 in product innovation, 89.8 in support, 94.7 in partnership, and 86.8 in managed and cloud services. The product innovation criteria scores included an impressive 102.4 for product quality and reliability.
Data Protection Software: Barracuda Networks
Channel Executive: Bill Fitzgerald, VP, Channel Sales, Americas
Barracuda Networks was the winner in this technology category with an overall score of 90.9.
The company came out on top in every criteria category with scores of 93.9 in product innovation, 88.1 for support, 92.3 for partnership, and 88.7 for managed and cloud services.
This category was a battle, however, in that Datto took top scores for a number of specific criteria including services opportunity (87.0), training (87.2) and solution provider program (88.0).
Data Security: Sophos
Channel Executive: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations
This is the first of five technology categories in which Sophos came out on top – the most of any company in this year’s Annual Report Card.
Sophos was the winner in this increasingly important technology category, making a clean sweep of all criteria and garnering an overall score of 87.6.
The company came out on top in every criteria category with scores of 91.1 in product innovation, 84.7 for support, 87.6 for partnership, and 86.5 for managed and cloud services.
Edge Computing: Scale Computing
Channel Executive: Kyle Fenske, Director, North American Channel
This is the second of two technology categories in which Scale Computing captured the highest grades, receiving an overall score of 92.0.
The company had the highest scores in every criteria category with 93.7 in product innovation, 91.8 for support, 94.5 for partnership, and 87.4 for managed and cloud services.
Lenovo did record several wins in specific criteria in this technology category including 89.2 for product marketability, an impressive 97.5 for profit margins/profit potential, and several high scores within the support category including 93.3 for pre-sales support and 85.5 for marketing support.
Enterprise Network Storage Hardware: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Channel Executive: Phil Soper, North America Head of Channel Sales
Hewlett Packard Enterprise was the winner in this highly competitive technology category, the first of two wins for HPE. The company had an overall score of 81.6, including top scores for product innovation (86.1), partnership (82.8), and managed and cloud services (79.8).
Pure Storage put up a fight here, winning the top score for all support criteria (76.7) and in several specific partnership criteria including revenue and profit potential (88.5) and ease of doing business (88.2).
And Dell Technologies scored highest for solution provider program (78.7) within the broader partnership criteria category.
Enterprise Wireless LANs: Aruba: an HPE Company
Channel Executive: Jim Harold, VP, North America Channel Sales
This is the first of three wins for Aruba in this year’s Annual Report Card.
Aruba made a clean sweep of this technology category. It’s overall score of 88.1 included high scores of 95.2 in product innovation, 86.0 for support, 87.1 for partnership, and 82.7 for managed and cloud services.
Extended Detection and Response: Sophos
Channel Executive: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations
The second of Sophos’ wins this year, the company came out on top in this technology category with an overall score of 93.1.
That included the highest scores in every criteria category including 96.3 in product innovation, 89.2 in support, 94.6 in partnership, and 91.4 in managed and cloud services.
Sentinel One Security did core several wins here in specific criteria including garnering scores of 98.9 for richness of product features/functionality, 83.7 for marketing support and 93.5 for communication.
Hybrid Cloud: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Channel Executive: Phil Soper, North America Head of Channel Sales
Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s second win in this year’s Annual Report Card was a hard-fought duel in the increasingly important hybrid cloud technology category.
HPE had the highest overall score at 78.8, including top scores in product innovation (82.4), partnership (77.9), and managed and cloud services (77.9).
Archrival Dell Technologies wasn’t far behind with an overall score of 76.5. Dell received the highest score for support criteria (76.7) and also top grades for a number of specific criteria including product quality and reliability (89.4), both pre- and post-sales support (84.0 and 79.4, respectively), and ease of doing business (80.3).
VMware won top scores for services opportunity (78.6) and integration with services management tools (75.8).
Industry Standard Servers: Lenovo
Channel Executive: Rob Cato, VP, North America Channels
Lenovo scored two wins in this year’s Annual Score Card including one in this channel mainstay technology category.
Lenovo scored 83.0 overall and received the highest scores in three criteria categories including 79.4 for support, 87.9 for partnership, and 78.8 for managed and cloud services.
Dell Technologies put up a good fight, drawing the top score for product innovation criteria (87.8) and scoring highest in a number of specific criteria such as product quality and reliability (100.5) and product technical innovation (90.1). Dell also scored highest for pre- and post-sales support (80.7 and 84.1, respectively) and marketing support (75.7).
Hewlett Packard Enterprise drew the highest score (66.8) for consumption-based/subscription pricing.
MSP RMM Platforms: N-able
Channel Executive: David Weeks, Sr. Director, Partner Experience
In yet another hard-fought match, N-able topped this technology category with an overall score of 76.4. That included the highest scores in product innovation (81.1), partnership (79.5), and managed and cloud services (74.4).
N-able also had the highest scores for training (77.0) and quality of field management (74.0) within the support category.
Datto had the highest overall score for support criteria, however, thanks to high scores for pre- and post-sales support (65.7 and 81.7, respectively) and marketing support (59.8). Datto also scored highest in several managed and cloud services criteria including consumption-based/subscription pricing (74.9) and cloud-readiness of channel program (74.2).
Network Connectivity: (Tie) Comcast Business/Masergy
Channel Executive: Craig Schlagbaum, SVP, Indirect Channels
This critical technology category turned out to be a dead heat between Comcast Business and its recent Masergy acquisition and rival Charter Spectrum with both companies earning an overall score of 72.8.
Comcast scored highest in most product innovation criteria for a score of 75.8 and in most managed and cloud services criteria for a score of 68.8.
Comcast also garnered higher scores in several specific criteria including marketing support (61.7) in the support category and solution provider program (75.6) and communication (80.7) in the partnership category.
Network Connectivity: (Tie) Charter Spectrum
Channel Executive: Michelle Kadlacek, VP, Spectrum Enterprise Channel Partner Sales
As noted in the previous slide, the scoring in the network connectivity technology category was a tie between Comcast Business and its recent Masergy acquisition and Charter Spectrum with both companies earning an overall score of 72.8
Charter Spectrum scored highest for support (71.9) thanks to high scores in such criteria as pre- and post-sales support (79.8 and 78.2, respectively) and in the partnership category (76.3) due to high scores in managing channel conflict (74.5) and ease of doing business (83.9).
Charter Spectrum also received high scores in specific criteria such as services opportunity (76.5) and consumption-based/subscription pricing (67.2).
Network Security – Enterprise: Fortinet
Channel Executive: Jon Bove, VP, Channel Sales
This technology category marks the first of two wins for Fortinet on the 2022 Annual Report Card.
Fortinet held its own against multiple competitors with an overall score of 85.9. That included winning scores of 91.4 for product innovation, 83.1 for support, and 80.8 for managed and cloud services criteria categories. Fortinet also come out on top in several specific partnership criteria including revenue and profit potential (90.5) and ease of doing business (94.0).
But the competition was fierce. SonicWall took the top score (87.3) for partnership criteria overall thanks to high scores for communication (89.3) and managing channel conflict (85.4). SonicWall also got the highest grade for pre-sales support (88.3).
Sophos also scored wins in several specific criteria in this technology category including quality of field management (83.3), solution provider program (82.7), and several criteria in managed and cloud services including consumption-based/subscription pricing (74.2), cloud-readiness of channel program (80.8), and field teaming and channel compensation alignment (81.1).
Network Security – SMB: Sophos
Channel Executive: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations
This crowded technology category marked another win for Sophos. The company won with the highest overall score (89.7) and had the top scores for product innovation (93.6), support (87.0), partnership (91.7), and managed and cloud services (85.7).
But all four Sophos competitors in this technology category received a top score for one or more specific criteria. Check Point Software Technologies, for example, garnered a number of top scores including for richness of product features/functionality (97.8), post-sales support (95.7), revenue and profit potential (93.0) and profit margins/profit potential (90.7).
Partners scored Fortinet at 92.4 for product compatibility and ease of integration while SonicWall scored 89.3 for pre-sales support. And Watchguard was given a very impressive score of 103.2, one of the highest criteria grades on this year’s Annual Report Card, for product quality and reliability within the product innovation criteria.
Networking Infrastructure – Enterprise: Aruba: an HPE Company
Channel Executive: Jim Harold, VP, North America Channel Sales
The second of Aruba’s three wins, the company came out on top with an overall score of 89.4. That included top scores for all four criteria categories: product innovation (95.6), support (88.0), partnership (89.8), and managed and cloud services (83.0).
It wasn’t a clean sweep, however, as rival Extreme Networks received top scores in several criteria including managing channel conflict (90.6), field teaming and channel compensation alignment (87.1) and profit margins/profit potential (89.1).
Notebooks/Mobile Computers: Lenovo
Channel Executive: Rob Cato, VP, North America Channels
Marking its second win in the 2022 Annual Report Card, Lenovo earned a clean sweep of all criteria in this technology category and an overall score of 89.3.
Across the criteria categories the company received scores of 94.1 in product innovation, 87.0 in support, 94.0 in partnership, and 80.9 in managed and cloud services.
Within the product innovation criteria Lenovo was scored 104.2 in product quality and reliability, one of the highest scores in any criteria on this year’s ARC.
Power Protection and Management: Eaton
Channel Executive: Herve Tardy, VP, Marketing & Strategy, Critical Power & Digital Infrastructure Division
Eaton nearly made this technology category a clean sweep with its 88.8 overall score. The company earned scores of 91.2 for product innovation, 90.4 for support, 93.4 for partnership, and 79.7 for managed and cloud services.
The product innovation score included a grade of 103.8 for product quality and reliability, one of the highest scores this year.
Schneider Electric – Secure Power Division kept Eaton from running the table in this technology segment by scoring 81.5 for integration with services management tools, one of the criteria within the managed and cloud services category.
Processors: Intel
Channel Executive: Jason Kimrey, VP, U.S. Channel and Partner Programs
Intel was uncontested in this technology category this year, earning an overall score of 82.7.
Across the criteria categories the processor giant recorded scores of 94.5 in product innovation, 79.4 for support, 85.1 in partnership, and 69.5 for managed and cloud services.
Intel often earns the single highest score – for product quality and reliability – on the Annual Report Card and this year the company continued that trend with a blockbuster score of 108.8.
SD-WAN: Fortinet
Channel Executive: Jon Bove, VP, Channel Sales
Fortinet scored a clean sweep in SD-WAN, a fast-growing segment of the IT industry and the channel. It also marked Fortinet’s second win on the 2022 Annual Report Card.
The company earned an overall score of 80.5. That included scores of 86.4 for product innovation, 79.5 for support, 80.3 for partnership, and 74.5 for managed and cloud services.
Security – Cloud: Sophos
Channel Executive: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations
In yet another win for Sophos, the company came very close to a clean sweep in the emerging cloud security segment where it earned an overall score of 91.2.
Sophos generated scores of 94.3 in product innovation, 87.0 for support, 92.9 in partnership, and 90.0 for managed and cloud services.
Lacework kept Sophos from running away with this technology category with its 94.2 score for communication within the partnership criteria.
Security – Endpoint Protection: Sophos
Channel Executive: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations
Sophos, in its fifth win on this year’s Annual Score Card, earned an overall score of 91.8 in this technology category.
The company earned top scores in each criteria category including 96.0 in product innovation, 88.7 for support, 92.9 in partnership, and 88.8 for managed and cloud services.
Sentinel One Security scored some wins in specific criteria, however. In product innovation the company edged out Sophos with scores of 103.1 in product quality and reliability and 99.0 in product technical innovation. Sentinel One also garnered the highest scores in several partnership criteria including communication (93.3), revenue and profit potential (94.7) and ease of doing business (99.6).
Security Management: Tenable
Channel Executive: Chris Blando, Senior Director, Channel Sales, Americas
Tenable pulled off a clean sweep of this technology category and earned an overall score of 90.1.
Across the criteria categories the company generated top scores of 93.1 in product innovation, 88.2 in support, 91.9 in partnership, and 86.4 for managed and cloud services.
SMB External Storage Hardware: Buffalo Americas
Channel Executive: Bill Rhodes, Director of Channel Sales
Another company recording a clean sweep on this year’s Annual Report Card is Buffalo Americas, which earned an overall score of 81.6 in the SMB external storage hardware technology category.
Across the criteria categories Buffalo received top scores of 92.2 in product innovation, 86.0 for support, 92.6 in partnership, and 88.3 for managed and cloud services.
The company’s product innovation grades included 107.2 for product quality and reliability – the second highest score for any criteria on this year’s ARC.
SMB Networking: Aruba, an HPE Company
Channel Executive: Jim Harold, VP, North America Channel Sales
Aruba, for its third win in this year’s Annual Report Card, came out on top in this technology category with an overall score of 86.2.
Across all criteria categories the company received top scores of 93.0 in product innovation, 84.0 for support, 86.0 in partnership, and 80.7 for managed and cloud services.
Extreme Networks garnered top scores for quality of field management (82.7) and consumption-based/subscription pricing (73.3). Cisco Systems scored an impressive 101.5 for product quality and reliability.
Unified Communications and Collaboration: Nextiva
Channel Executive: Marc Stein, Global VP, Channel Sales
Nextiva scored a clean sweep of all criteria in this increasingly important product category for the channel.
The company received an overall score of 85.9. That included top scores of 89.4 in product innovation, 84.4 for support, 87.1 in partnership, and 82.0 for managed and cloud services.