The moment that everyone in the channel has been waiting for has arrived. After weeks of deliberation and vote tallying we proudly unveil the winners of our 2008 Channel Insider Product of the Year Awards.
With 27 products sets, ranging from power management to MFPs, and network security to software as a service, our awards cover every important product set available to solution providers.
The winners were chosen by a select group of solution providers, and their picks reveal what the channel values most. Value. Support. Profit potential. The winner's list-- broken into five categories: Business Software, Security, Utility Software and Systems, Clients and Peripherals, Networking and Storage--serves as a roadmap for products that should be on every VAR’s roster.
With heavyweights such as Dell, HP and Lenovo squaring off in the notebooks category, and Cisco, IBM and Microsoft going head to head in e-mail/collaboration software, the winners truly own bragging rights. But the Channel Insider Awards are not just about the mega-vendors; smaller players also made a strong showing in areas such as security and business software.
The most hotly contested category was the security server group, with Trend Micro winning by the slimmest of margins. The winner with the greatest margin was our software as a service (SAAS) winner, Salseforce.com, a clear indication of their market dominance. Be sure to check out the entire list, and don't forget to sound off in our forum, and let us know if your favorite products made the grade.
Our Methodology
To ensure that our awards are not only fair and just, but that they are compiled with the strictest of criteria and reflect real channel opinion, we chose a select list of VARs--from very large to SMBs and those selling a range of solutions and vendors--and contacted them to participate in an e-mail voting system. This controlled research allowed us to monitor and ensure the quality of our awards.
Each participant was asked to rate the products from 0-10. Products were scored, based on each voter's responses, from 0 to 10 as follows:
- 1 point: level of familiarity with product
- 3 points: profit potential of product
- 2-1/2 points: opportunity for aftermarket sales related to product
- 1-1/2 points: impact of product on the technology market as a whole
- 2 points: service/support level from vendor for product
We also weighted responses by level of familiarity with the product, so that votes counted more if they were from voters more familiar with the product.
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