2010 Channel Champions: 10 Best Vendors For Technical Satisfaction
1. Seagate
Seagate not only won the Technical Satisfaction vote in the SATA Hard Drives category, but the vendor's score of 88.3 was the highest for Technical Satisfaction in ANY category in this year's competition. Clearly, storage VARs and system builders like the Scotts Valley, Calif.-based company, which has engineering chops that are second to none.
Overall Technical Satisfaction Score: 88.3 (1st place, SATA Hard Drives)
2. Western Digital
Western Digital may have finished second by a sliver to competitor Seagate in Technical Satisfaction for the SATA Hard Drives category, but the Lake Forest, Calif.-based enterprise and desktop drive vendor can take solace in the fact that it finished ahead of every other company in every other product category in terms of pleasing partners with its technological know-how.
Overall Technical Satisfaction Score: 88.2 (2nd place, SATA Hard Drives)
3. APC
APC, now Schneider Electric's Critical Power and Cooling Services Business Unit, beat out the competition on Technical Satisfaction in our Channel Champs survey, wowing partners with its portfolio of uninterruptible power supplies and power management tools for the data center.
Overall Technical Satisfaction Score: 87.1 (1st place, Power Protection and Management)
4. HP ProCurve
It's no secret that Hewlett-Packard, in its battle against Cisco is gunning for larger customers with its ProCurve networking hardware, but for now HP has much to happy about with its ProCurve division winning top Channel Champs honors for Technical Satisfaction in the SMB Networking Hardware category from partners serving SMBs.
Overall Technical Satisfaction Score: 86.7 (1st place, SMB Networking Hardware)
5. Cisco
Surprise, surprise -- the winner of top Technical Satisfaction marks in Enterprise Networking Hardware is none other than perennial Channel Champion Cisco Systems. The networking giant has felt some pressure in some segments of the IT market of late as the data center business moves towards converged infrastructures, but Cisco and its partners continue to dominate the field with the biggest accounts out there.
Overall Technical Satisfaction Score: 86.5 (1st place, Enterprise Networking Hardware)
6. IBM
IBM may be more focused on its services portfolio these days, but at certain inflection points in the market, there's still no better deliverer of hardware platforms. Want proof? Consider Big Blue's big Channel Champs win on Technical Satisfaction among partners selling midrange servers, defined as being listed at more than $25,000 in price.
Overall Technical Satisfaction Score: 85.6 (1st place, Midrange Servers)
7. Cisco
Watch out -- here's Cisco again with leading Technical Satisfaction numbers in yet another product category in 2010 Channel Champions survey, SMB Networking Hardware, which includes wireless LANs. That's the good news for the San Jose, Calif.-based vendor -- the challenge is to zero in on first-place finisher HP ProCurve.
Overall Technical Satisfaction Score: 85.5 (2nd place, SMB Networking Hardware)
8. Juniper Networks
Juniper Networks had a pair of very satisfying finishes on the Technical Satisfaction portion of its product categories in this year's Channel Champs results. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based networking vendor did finish second to market leader Cisco in terms of impressing partners with its enterprise networking gear, but for Juniper, two top 10 overall finishes in Technical Criteria was quite an accomplishment.
Overall Technical Satisfaction Score: 85.3 (2nd place, Enterprise Networking Hardware)
9. Juniper Networks
Juniper took a backseat to no one in pleasing partners with the quality and price-for-performance of its network security appliances, including security gateway, VPN, and intrusion detection and prevention appliances. Protecting customers from security threats is a crucial Channel Champions product category that falls squarely into many solution providers' core business, protecting customers from security threats.
Overall Technical Satisfaction Score: 84.9 (1st place, Network Security Appliances)
10. HP
Hewlett-Packard launched its ProLiant G6 line of industry standard servers in 2009, saying that swapping out older servers for the more energy-efficient G6 models would deliver ROI to partners and their customers, a promise that was almost too good to be true. Well guess what? HP has delivered on its promise according to partners, and the computing giant is tops in Technical Satisfaction for volume servers, defined as those listing at less than $25,000 in price.
Overall Technical Satisfaction Score: 84.6 (1st place, Volume Servers)