Sponsor of Storage Distributor of the Year

Acronis is the leading provider of storage management software that enables corporations and individuals to move, manage and maintain digital assets. Acronis sells innovative solutions for disaster recovery, server consolidation and virtualisation migration, which allow users to maintain business continuity and reduce downtime in computing environments. Acronis software products are sold in more than 180 countries and are available in 13 languages.

For additional information, please visit www.acronis.co.uk

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 Sponsor of Software Distributor of the Year

Running your outsource IT business on spreadsheets and email?  Time to Automate with Autotask.

If you are using Microsoft® Outlook, home-grown solutions, or disconnected stand-alone appls that don't talk to each other, Autotask can automate the repeatable processes you perform every day so you can manage your IT business better.

Our award-winning, web-based solutions combine service desk, project management, dispatching, CRM and billing.  The result is increased efficiency, performance and profitability you can measure. 

Autotask solutions automate processes throughout the customer lifecycle to:

•           Increase the billable hours you capture

•           Integrate your critical business applications, and

•           Improve customer service while reducing operational overhead

Autotask can be configured with your processes and workflows to give you the power to track everything you do so that all billable time is captured, and you know what is profitable and what isn’t.  

The most affordable solution
With Autotask, you will get an affordable solution designed specifically to meet the critical business problems faced by an IT company of your size.  

For more information go to www.autotask.co.uk

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Sponsor of Storage Vendor of the Year

Bell Micro is a global, specialist distributor of a wide range of high-tech products, solutions and services, including storage systems, servers, security, software, computer components and peripherals, as well as integration, maintenance and professional services. An industry-recognised specialist in storage products, this Fortune 1000 company is one of the world's largest storage-centric value-added distributors with revenues of over €1.2bn in Europe and $4bn world-wide.

Bell Micro is uniquely qualified with deep technical and application expertise to service a broad range of information technology needs. From design to deployment, its products and services are available at any level of integration, from components to sub-system assemblies and fully-integrated, tested and certified system solutions all designed to enhance its’ partners. Bell Micro operates through three channels to market – Industrial, Commercial and Enterprise – each of which offers a wide range of services and products from major IT vendors.

More information on Bell Micro can be found by visiting www.bellmicro.eu.

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 Sponsor of Security Vendor of the Year




COMPUTERLINKS is Europe’s leading security value-added distributor.  With 17 wholly owned outlets worldwide and professional services coverage in 68 countries, this visionary company is the distribution partner of choice for UK resellers wishing to benefit from their economies of scale and global capabilities.
 
COMPUTERLINKS maintains the highest standards of customer service and relationship management in the channel and has an innovative, visionary and dynamic approach to helping its reseller partners tap into lucrative new growth areas.  COMPUTERLINKS also continues to build its reputation for excellence in Professional Services, Support and Training.  The company strives to ensure that its 1200 partner resellers have all the support they need to deliver excellent services to their customers.  In a customer survey last year, 89% of respondents ranked their services as equal as or better than other distributors that they regularly use.  Quality of service is evidenced by the awards won over the recent years, including last years’ Microscope Aces Security Distributor of the Year Award.  

The distributor boasts a portfolio of market leading vendors.  Twelve of COMPUTERLINKS’ partner vendors are positioned in Gartner’s leading upper quartiles for their respective technologies.

For more information please visit www.computerlinks.co.uk

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Sponsor of Storage Reseller of the Year

As a dedicated storage distributor with 18 year’s experience in the market, Hammer is delighted to be sponsoring the Storage Reseller of the Year category at this year’s Awards for Channel Excellence. In an uncertain economic climate, focused resellers who maintain positivity and individuality deserve to be recognised and commended for their commitment to the storage industry.

The storage market and technologies are changing as fast as ever – and the role of the reseller is of paramount importance in order to guide the end user into making informed decisions, so that they are provided with a solution that covers all requirements within the business.

Jason Beeson, solutions manager at Hammer, says: “These resellers with a credible and simple strategy based around storage are proving that the recession is less of an issue than for those that are simply fighting for business”.

For more infomation please visit
www.hammerplc.com

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Sponsor of Networking and Comms Reseller of the Year

Cisco Small Business and Ingram Micro

The needs of the small business market are constantly evolving, and the demand for networks is one of the current growth areas. So turning your back on networks is turning your back on additional sales and profit.

Whatever the size of a business, the key to success springs from employees, customers and suppliers being able to connect, so they can work more productively and more profitably.

Small businesses want simple products that offer quick solutions, at an affordable price. They want products that are designed for Small Business – rather than cut down from a bigger enterprise solution.

The Cisco Small Business range, you get this and more. Customers know they’re getting a reliable, branded solution – from the most comprehensive small business networking product range – at an affordable price. And they also know they are getting a min 1 Year (and up to 5 year) warranty, 50% discount off GPL for Not For Resale product, 5% on Public Sector deals and 0% finance (on voice product order over £1000).

Combine this with Ingram Micro’s unparalleled stock portfolio, superb technical support and credit options, and it puts you two steps ahead of the competition.

Just call 0870 405 3660 to speak to an Ingram account manager about your networking opportunity.

 For more infomation please visit www.ingrammicro.co.uk

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Sponsor of Software Reseller of the Year 

Securing and Managing an Information-Driven World

Customers of all sizes are faced with one essential challenge: the need to secure and manage an enormous amount of information. We all live and work in an information-driven world. Information is the lifeblood of modern business and, increasingly, of modern life. Each year, the amount of information we create increases exponentially and securing and managing our information-driven world becomes even more important and challenging. Customers are increasingly concerned about how to secure and manage their increasing amounts of information – from digital photos to business critical data.  Securing and managing all this information is a tough job.

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help our customers – from consumers and small businesses to the largest global organizations – secure and manage their information against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently than any other company. Our company’s unique focus is to eliminate risks to information, technology and processes independent of the device, platform, interaction or location.

For more information please visit www.symantec.com

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 Sponsor of Security Distributor of the Year 

The nature of security threats – and the organised criminals perpetrating them – has changed dramatically over the past few years. But the security industry’s response has hardly altered to meet the new threats and if it continues with traditional end-point security, it will soon be fighting a losing battle against the rising tide of increasingly sophisticated threats. Clearly a new approach to security is needed and moving protection into the cloud holds the key, making the most of centralised computer power and increasing the efficiency and immediacy of response for the user.

Trend Micro’s cloud-client Smart Protection Network is one such offering and it consists of three elements: e-mail, web and file reputation management, but perhaps more importantly offering the possibility of cross-correlation between events, cross population between databases and a customer feedback loop. It maintains a global network of threat intelligence data, which currently adds more than 50 million suspect IP addresses and URLs a day to the web-reputation database alone, and in total currently processes more than 5 billion requests a day, providing comprehensive protection against all types of threats including new-style web threats.

It’s the combination of the three elements that makes Smart Protection Network so powerful in combating web threats, with the Network able to correlate between different events, such as a Spam e-mail containing a link that points to a malicious  website, that downloads a new and undetected malware that attempts to “phone home” to a known malicious destination. The correlation between the different occurrences helps build up a global picture, and ultimately makes for a better threat database.

The Smart Protection Network is sometimes compared to an online version of the Neighbourhood Watch scheme, where citizens look out for each other in real-time and head off trouble before it occurs. A Smart Protection Network is a new approach that takes advantage of the latest technologies while existing approaches are already being stretched to the limit, and the situation is only going to get more challenging. The Smart Protection Network is a dynamic real-time protection technology, that is designed to scale with the nature of the threat.

For Trend Micro’s partners, the Smart Protection Network offers more tools to bring to their customer base. These new tools reduce dependencies on conventional pattern file downloads, which can typically no longer address multi-faceted web threats.

For more infomation please visit
www.uk.trendmicro.com/uk/home

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Sponsor of Environmental Company of the Year 

Fortinet is the pioneer and leading provider of ASIC-accelerated unified threat management, or UTM, security systems, which are used by enterprises and service providers to increase their security while reducing total operating costs. Fortinet solutions were built from the ground up to integrate multiple levels of security protection--including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, VPN, web filtering, spyware prevention, and anti-spam -- designed to help customers protect against network and content level threats.

Leveraging a custom ASIC and a unified interface, Fortinet solutions offer advanced security functionality that scales from remote office to chassis-based solutions with integrated management and reporting capabilities.  Fortinet solutions have won multiple awards around the world and are the only security products that are certified in six programs by ICSA Labs: Firewall, Antivirus, IPSec VPN, SSL VPN, Network IPS, and Anti-spam.

Fortinet's market-leading products and award winning partner programs connect partners to the resources needed to develop expertise, grow business, increase customer satisfaction, and maximise profitability.

Value Adding Distributor VADition’s 'Intuitive Technologies' strategy, is a range of Internet inspired platforms and services designed around simplifying increasingly complex and overloaded information infrastructures.

The products chosen mirror the self-service behaviour of an increasingly IP savvy society - business and consumer. The characteristics of VADition’s chosen vendor partners, including Fortinet, therefore must demonstrate a belief in new business models embraced within 'Web 2.0', and have designed their technology around 'Self Service' or simplification.

For more information please visit www.vadition.com

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Sponsor of Security Reseller of the Year 

 Wick Hill is a leading international value-added distributor specialising in secure infrastructure solutions. Our portfolio includes a comprehensive range of security solutions, as well as connectivity, access and management products.

 Your success is our success, so, at Wick Hill, we do everything we can to make sure your business prospers. We use our experience of over 30 years in the channel to select a portfolio of best-of-breed, high margin products with growth potential, which offer you plenty of upsell opportunities. And we make sure that you get all the help you require to market, sell, install and support these products.  This includes pre- and post-sales support, help with telemarketing campaigns, the ongoing provision of leads, an innovative online lead management system to help manage and close leads, free training courses and fast delivery of goods.