VAR500 Awards: Channel Stars Shine On Wall Street
The 2010 VAR500 Awards
The 2010 VAR500 awards were presented Tuesday night at New York's Cipriani Wall Street. The event was the 10th annual gala and celebrated the accomplishments of 20 companies and executives.
CEO Robert Faletra Sets the Tone
The CEO of Everything Channel, Robert Faletra, thanked the solution providers as well as the CIOs in attendance. This was the first year of a daylong VAR500-CIO50 conference, held at the Marriott Downtown. Faletra also noted the return of Comdex later this year -- this time in virtual form -- by Everything Channel.
VP Kelley Damore Provides VAR500 Inisght
Everything Channel Vice President and Editorial Director Kelley Damore offered some insight into the facts and figures of the VAR500. The VAR500 is worth more than $523 billion — one thousand times the revenue of Facebook last year. The mean revenue for the 2010 list as a whole was $1 billion. Just a decade ago, the mean revenue was $557 million. Among the overall VAR500, the top five technologies sold were backup and recovery solutions; virtualization; enterprise storage solutions; hubs, switches and routers; and midrange servers.
She also announced the relaunch of CRN.com next month and gave a sneak peek of those enhancements.
Newcomer Of The Year
Min Cho, president and CEO of Nova Datacom (2010 VAR500 rank: 416), accepts the 2010 VAR500 Newcomer of the Year award from CRN's Jennifer Bosavage.
This minority woman-owned solution provider brought in revenue of $35 million in 2009 by focusing on continuity planning and developing cutting-edge security measures for both public and private sector clients.
Top Revenue Generator, Less Than $250 Million
The first revenue generator award (VAR500 company with revenue of less than $250 million) went to No. 192 on this year’s list, MicroTech.
MicroTech is a $150 million VAR that manages more than 500,000 IT users a day. It services a broad range of clients, from small businesses, to state and local agencies, to Fortune 500 enterprises. Its customers include the Social Security Administration and Federal Aviation Administration, the Defense Information Systems Agency and the Department of Veterans Affairs as well as military branches including the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard.
Accepting for MicroTech from Everything Channel Vice President and Editorial Director Kelley Damore is Tony Jimenez, president and CEO.
Top Revenue Generator, $250 Million To $1 Billion
The award for Top Revenue Generator in the $250 million to $1 billion range was won by No. 116 on the VAR500, Genesis Networks.
This $420 million company grew at nearly 560 percent in 2009. It offers solutions in security, mobility, unified communications and managed services, and counts among its partners Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Alcatel-Lucent and AT&T.
Accepting for Genesis is Steve Seago, vice president of sales.
Top Revenue Generator, More Than $1 Billion
HP Services, No. 2 on the 2010 VAR500, won the final award in the Top Revenue Generator category for companies in the more than $1 billion range.
HP Services has seen outstanding revenue growth of more than 32 percent to $34.7 billion, through providing technology services that include cloud computing and data center transformation, and enterprise services such as business process and infrastructure technology outsourcing.
Accepting the award from Kelley Damore is Frank Rauch, vice president of enterprise servers, storage and networking channel sales.
Best Partnership
The Best Partnership award goes to a systems integrator that brings unsurpassed commitment, technical expertise and business vision to its solutions. This year's winner, World Wide Technology, came in at No. 50 on this year's VAR500, with more than $2.3 billion in revenue.
Accepting the award is the company's vice president of corporate business development, Bob Olwig.
Editor's Choice For Business Excellence
Coming in on this year’s list at No. 181 with $206 million in revenue is the winner of the 2009 VAR500 Editor’s Choice for Business Excellence, NWN. NWN, which saw revenue surge 34 percent between 2008 and 2009, has a tremendous presence in the government as well as education markets.
CRN's Steve Burke (center), presents the award to CEO Mont Phelps and Managing Director Jane Linder.
Top Technology Practices For Excellence In BPO
No. 21 on the VAR500, ACS, a Xerox company, took home the award in this new category. The CRN Test Center's Ed Moltzen (left) presents the award to Michael Sigmund, senior vice president.
ACS' customer success stories are impressive: For example, it has improved a shipping company’s turnaround time from two weeks to 24 hours, shortened its billing cycles from 20 days to six days, and decreased staff from 14,000 to 4,000. Another example: ACS helped save a leading manufacturer more than $35 million annually through re-engineered processes.
Top Technology Practices For Excellence In Storage
This year’s winner, Datalink (2010 VAR500 rank: 195), has been providing data center solutions combined with exceptional services and support since 1987. It is a leader in providing unified storage, server and network solutions.
Accepting for Datalink is Paul Lidsky (left), president and CEO.
Top Technology Practices For Excellence In Security
Winner Accuvant grew its revenue 18 percent last year to $168 million. Among the industry awards it has received this year are the Extraordinary Partnership IP Networking 2009 award from Brocade and the Strategic Growth Partner award from Westcon.
Accepting for Accuvant (2010 VAR500 rank: 199) is Dan Burns (right), co-founder and vice president of sales.
Top Technology Practices For Managed Service Provider Excellence
Ranked No. 373 on the VAR500, winner Teklinks provides solutions in IP telephony, network security, data storage, disaster recovery, as well as hosting services.
Accepting for Teklinks is David Powell (left), vice president of managed services.
Top Technology Practices For Excellence In Mobile Services And Integration
By partnering with Cisco, 3Com and Proxim, winning VAR Future Tech Enterprises (2010 VAR500 rank: 197) has been able to provide easy-to-use "anytime, anywhere" Wi-Fi access to its customers.
Accepting on behalf of Future Tech is Bob Venero (right), president and CEO.
Infrastructure
Nth Generation Computing took home the infrastructure award, in recognition of its collaboration with businesses that are investing in scalable, mission-critical enterprise information technologies. Nth Generation (2010 VAR500 rank: 403) provides clients with peace of mind that their data is secure, accessible and highly available.
President Mark Gonzalez (left) accepts the award.
Top Technology Practices For Excellence In Networking
Presidio Networked Solutions (2010 VAR500 rank: 65) was honored with this award based on the strength of its solutions, which address the entire technology life cycle -- planning, designing, integrating, operating and optimizing -- of networking and system solutions. In addition, company revenue grew 11 percent from 2008.
CRN's Scott Campbell (left) presents the award to Presidio Networked Solutions' Tom Foley, division co-president.
Top Technology Practices For Excellence In Storage/Virtualization
Since 1971, winner Forsythe Technology (2010 VAR500 rank: 88) has offered IT and business consulting services, technology leasing and products from leading infrastructure manufacturers. In addition, this employee-owned integrator has been on our VAR500 list since 1995.
Accepting the award from CRN's Chad Berndston (right) is Gary Brown, Forsythe vice president, storage.
Top Technology Practices For Excellence In Cloud Computing
Winning solution provider Appirio (2010 VAR500 rank: 471) serves a wide range of customers from Starbucks to Qualcomm. It guarantees $1 million in savings for qualified companies that "cloudsource" their entire IT to the company and the public cloud. With revenue growth of 317 percent between 2008 and 2009, the company may indeed have a right to be sure of itself.
Accepting on behalf of Appirio is CTO Glenn Weinstein (left).
Top Vertical Practice, Financial Services
Our winner, Fiserv (2010 VAR500 rank: 34), provides information management systems and services to the financial and insurance industries. It offers a multitude of services, including transaction processing, outsourcing and business process outsourcing to more than 16,000 clients worldwide.
Accepting for Fiserv is Judy Wicks, vice president of communications.
Top Vertical Practice, Public Sector
ImmixGroup (2010 VAR500 rank: 121) was recognized for helping hundreds of companies -- including IBM, Oracle, EMC and McAfee -- grow and manage their government business while providing federal, state and local agencies with reliable access to leading commercial technologies.
Company revenue grew a whopping 44 percent in 2009. Accepting on behalf of ImmixGroup is Skip Liesegang (left), vice president, government channels division.
Health-Care Technology Excellence
A 15-year member of the VAR500 list, Emtec (2010 VAR500 rank: 352) designs, plans, supplies and implements IT infrastructure and tools from vendor partners including 3Com, Brocade, Alcatel-Lucent and Adobe. Emtec saw 6 percent growth this year.
Among its recent health-care successes is an implementation at Bridgeport Hospital in Connecticut, in which 1,000 computers in 15 different buildings were networked and redundantly linked as part of a disaster recovery plan.
Accepting on behalf of Emtec is Adam Alonso (left), vice president of global services.
Business Transformation
What distinguishes this company from others is its incredible ability to see where the market is heading and adapt to those needs successfully. CompuCom Systems (2010 VAR500 rank: 54) started 23 years ago as a traditional reseller, and today this $1.8 billion solution provider includes among its offerings Infrastructure-as-a-Service and remote management, as well as hardware and software.
Kelley Damore presents the award to CompuCom CEO Jim Dixon.
Company Of The Year
For more than 50 years, CSC (2010 VAR500 rank: 6) has created and deployed smart, technology-enabled solutions to solve its customers' thorniest IT issues. It prides itself on working with the customer, really listening to what their needs are, and then creating a unique solution that fits like a glove.
As an example, it has helped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention build a database of digital photos, illustrations and videos relating to public health. And it has rolled out a series of help-desk best practices for United Technologies Corporation that transformed and revitalized its help desk.
Jennifer Bosavage presents the award to CSC's Randy Phillips, vice president and chief development officer.
Executive Of The Year
Jere Brown, CEO of Dimension Data Americas, is the winner of the 2010 VAR500 Executive of the Year Award.
Brown has held his position since 2006. He is in relentless pursuit of services and margin growth, with the aim of fulfilling the company's transition to a services-led company. He recognizes customers have refocused their priorities in the wake of last year's recession, and is focused on providing solutions to help them reduce costs and energy consumption, as well as free up resources and improving security.
Boomer Esiason Boosts the VAR500 Team Spirit
Following the awards, Boomer Esiason made some remarks on building effective teams, using anecdotes from his 14 years as a quarterback in the NFL. Today, he is one of the most respected broadcasters in sports because of his in-depth analysis and truthful personality. He also dedicates much of his time to fighting cystic fibrosis through his work at the Boomer Esiason Foundation.
Pictured: Esiason (back row, center) with the VAR500 award winners
Visit the online home of CRN's VAR500 report for more on the companies that made this year's list.