ARN ICT Industry Awards 2016
ARN honoured the industry’s finest on a landmark evening for the Australian channel, as the tenth ARN ICT Industry Awards went off in style in Sydney.
Following a decade of celebrating the industry - alongside 25 years of reporting on it - close to 700 of the country's standout performers joined ARN for an evening of recognition and achievement.
Encapsulating a year of great change for the local market, the highlights of the past 12 months were once again played out on the grandest stage, acknowledging the success of both emerging and established players within the industry.
Hosted by Vince Sorrenti, the tenth awarding of the channel’s finest set the stage for three ARN Hall of Fame inductees; Angela Fox of Dell EMC, Laurence Baynham of Data#3 and Dominic Whitehand of Exclusive Networks.
Keynoted by 2014 Hall of Fame inductee - Allan King of Infront Systems - the packed house at the Four Points by Sheraton Sydney in Darling Harbour played host to a milestone occasion.
ARN congratulates all winners, finalists and nominees, and thanks a judging panel comprising of over 100 of the industry’s leading influencers.
And the winners are…
VENDOR AWARDS
Hardware Vendor of the Year
WINNER: Lenovo
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Huawei Technologies / Nimble Storage
Software Vendor of the Year
WINNER: VMware
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Citrix
Specialist Vendor of the Year
WINNER: Veeam Software
HIGHLY COMMENDED: F5
Security Vendor of the Year
WINNER: FireEye
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Trend Micro
Networking Vendor of the Year
WINNER: Cisco
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Huawei Technologies
DISTRIBUTOR AWARDS
Hardware Distributor of the Year
WINNER: Dicker Data
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Distribution Central
Software Distributor of the Year
WINNER: rhipe
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Dicker Data
Specialist Distributor of the Year
WINNER: NEXTGEN
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Exclusive Networks
Best Distributor Initiative of the Year
WINNER: Avnet
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Distribution Central
PARTNER AWARDS
Enterprise Partner of the Year
WINNER: Data#3
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Thomas Duryea Consulting
Mid-Market Partner of the Year
WINNER: Brennan IT
HIGHLY COMMENDED: ASI Solutions
SMB Partner of the Year
WINNER: eNerds
HIGHLY COMMENDED: XCentral
Best Partner Performance Initiative of the Year
WINNER: Staples Technology Solutions
Staples wins the Best Partner Performance Initiative for its work around customer experience at the CXO level. This has been through a series of thought leadership campaigns and events. It has resulted in 70 new CXO customers with businesses that are scaling rapidly and require help to achieve best of breed working environments.
PERSONAL INNOVATION
Channel Excellence of the Year
WINNER: Geoff Wright (Dell EMC)
Geoff wins the channel excellence award for going above and beyond to grow Dell’s existing relationships and develop new partnerships in the channel. His management style is that of an inspiring and approachable leader, helping his team thrive and grow. By sharing his knowledge and experience, Geoff has had a significant impact on Dell’s market position.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Stephanie McFadden (Westcon-Comstor)
Sales Excellence of the Year
WINNER: Marisa Newham (Datacom)
Marisa is the winner of the Sales Excellence for her ongoing success in meeting growth targets and creating customer satisfaction. She recently closed one of Datacom’s largest software support contracts of over $7.5M. She was instrumental in leading the successful bid team, which now supports core applications, through her ongoing pursuit of service excellence.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Grant Samuels (Mexia)
Technical Excellence of the Year
WINNER: Steve Hickey (Westcon-Comstor)
Steve wins this award for being the subject matter expert for the NetApp portfolio for Westcon-Comstor. He has been instrumental in growing the company’s market share, achieving this through a proactive approach that includes demonstrating significant added value for resellers. Steve is also a trusted advisor, providing guidance and technical expertise that helps resellers maximise opportunities.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Ian Welch (Dicker Data)
Management Excellence of the Year
WINNER: David Nicol (Citrix)
David wins the Management Excellence award for demonstrating outstanding leadership with his team His success as a leader has meant major milestones for Citrix A/NZ including a highly successful go-to-market strategy for the launch of Citrix Workspace Cloud in A/NZ. David is a passionate evangelist for transformative technology and also for Citrix employees and partners.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Angela Coronica (Cisco)
COMMUNITY AWARDS
Sustainability
WINNER: APC by Schneider Electric
HIGHLY COMMENDED: HP Inc
Corporate Citizenship
WINNER: Microsoft
Microsoft wins this award for demonstrating corporate citizenship on numerous levels across Australia. During the past year, Microsoft Australia has delivered over $1.1 million in cash grants to more than 20 non-profit partners, including $50 million of software and hardware to more than 3,000 non-profits. With a strong focus on supporting young disadvantaged people through technology programs, Microsoft has also worked closely with its channel partners to reach more than 500 non-profits face to face during the past year.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: IBM
Channel Champion
WINNER: Nick Verykios (Distribution Central)
Nick wins the Channel Champion award for his overall belief in the purpose of caring. He has counselled more than 750 teenagers and adults over 23 years, working with youth crisis and suicide. Nick has set up orphanages throughout Asia built around the philosophy of teaching people to fish rather than giving them fish. His work with charity never ends.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Belinda Jurisic (Citrix)
TELECOMMUNICATIONS AWARDS
Vendor of the Year
WINNER: ShoreTel
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Cisco / Mitel
Distributor of the Year
WINNER: Distribution Central
Partner of the Year
WINNER: Optus Business
HIGHLY COMMENDED: BigAir Group
Best Telecommunications Initiative of the Year
WINNER: NEXTDC
NEXTDC wins the telco initiative for its AXONVX virtual exchange solution launched in October 2015. AXONVX connects companies that are already housing co-location, Cloud providers, network providers, and portal providers, enabling IT integrators to snap together Cloud services and carrier networks to create hybrid Cloud solutions.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: NEXON
HOMEGROWN INNOVATORS
Service Provider of the Year
WINNER: Cloud Plus
HIGHLY COMMENDED: NEXTDC
ISV of the Year
WINNER: Artis Group
HIGHLY COMMENDED: HubOne
Start Up of the Year
WINNER: SixPivot
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Adactin Group / InfoTrust
CLOUD COMPUTING AWARDS
Vendor of the Year
WINNER: Amazon Web Services
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Microsoft
Partner of the Year
WINNER: Kloud Solutions
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Brennan IT
Best Cloud Initiative of the Year
WINNER: Microsoft
Microsoft wins the Best Cloud Initiative for the Next program, designed to train and foster growth for partners with rich, easily-consumable content. It is tailored to individuals covering core areas in leadership, sales, and marketing with an integrated digital experience, creating an Always-On program for partners. Through Next over 250 partners have begun transacting cloud for the fist time.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Amazon Web Services
CHANNEL CHOICE AWARDS
HARDWARE VENDOR: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
SOFTWARE VENDOR: Barracuda Networks
DISTRIBUTOR: Ingram Micro
PARTNER: Data#3
HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES
Angela Fox
Laurence Baynham
Dominic Whitehand
