Kaspersky and Apple surprise winners in Lifestyle and Software categories
Global giants, Microsoft, Intel and HP, were voted winners in the Vendor of the Year awards for Partner Programme, Printing and Components categories respectively at the ‘EMEA Channel Academy: 2009 Awards’ in Monaco. Hosted by DISTREE Events as part of its annual DISTREE XXL 2009 conference, the inaugural awards ceremony for the EMEA Channel Academy voted winners in 9 distribution territories and 8 vendor categories.
Over 400 attending distributors from across the EMEA region voted live for the vendor categories. Winners included Apple in the Digital Lifestyle category and Kaspersky in the software category. Other winners in the vendor categories included Asus for Desktop/Notebook, Western Digital for Peripherals and Logitech for Accessories.
“Receiving an award voted live by a roomful of distributors representing the EMEA channel is a great honour for any vendor,” said Maan Ahmadie, EMEA Distribution Director for Intel. “We appreciate the honour which is a testimony to our technological leadership. We now have the added pressure to maintain and continue to deserve this trust placed in us by our partners and hope to continue to deserve it in the coming year – whatever the economic climate.”
A special jury of vendor representatives voted for the distributor awards that saw Westcon Africa and Aptec win the MEA categories, while ABC Data, Actebis, GNT, Elko, InfoQuest, Esprinet and WestCoast won the Central & Eastern Europe, DACH, Northern Europe, Russia & CIS, South East Europe, Southern Europe and UK & Ireland categories respectively.
Ali Baghdadi, chairman at Aptec Holdings said, “We are honoured by the trust placed in us by the vendors. We will continue to work towards meeting our customers’ expectations. As a regular participant in DISTREE Events, these functions serve to create a platform that unifies the channel community in the EMEA region.”
“Each and every nominee should be proud of their achievement,” said Farouk Hemraj, CEO at DISTREE Events. “To be named as an official nominee is recognition that all of them are at the top of their game in the specific category they have been nominated for. We would like to congratulate each and every one of them.”
A complete list of awards:
Vendor categories:
EMEA Desktop/Notebook Vendor of the Year: Asus
EMEA Digital Lifestyle Vendor of the Year: Apple
EMEA Peripherals Vendor of the Year: Western Digital
EMEA Components Vendor of the Year: Intel
EMEA Software Vendor of the Year: Kaspersky
EMEA Accessories Vendor of the Year: Logitech
EMEA Printing Vendor of the Year: HP
EMEA Partner Programme of the Year: Microsoft
Distributor categories:
Africa: Westcon Africa
Central & Eastern Europe: ABC Data
DACH: Actebis
Middle East & Turkey: Aptec
Northern Europe:GNT
Russia & CIS: Elko
South East Europe: InfoQuest
Southern Europe: Esprinet
UK & Ireland: Westcoast
