VARIndia Honours Vendors with Star Nite Awards 2006
The much-awaited 2006 VARIndia Star Nite Awards was held with great pomp and fanfare in on 10th November, 2006 in New Delhi in the presence of the distinguished audience of more than 600 people, comprising government officials, CXOs, foreign guests from Great Britain, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, distributors, VARs, SIs and channel partners from across the country. The event also provided a platform to the executives of Samsung and Xerox to showcase their capabilities with audio/video presentations. The event kick-started with the lighting of the ceremonial lamp by the chief guest, Shri R. Chandrashekhar, Additional Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, and other high-profile dignitaries.
In his inaugural speech, Mr. Deepak Sahu, President & Director, Kalinga Digital Media, said, “Over a period of time, VARIndia magazine has emerged as the frontline IT magazine of the IT industry. We have redesigned our web site www.varindia.com to be more powerful and interactive for the channel partners and corporates. VARIndia News Service (VNS) caters to more than 60 thousand subscribers inclusive of users and channel partners. The addressability of VNS has been highly appreciated by the subscribers.” VARIndia is a monthly publication, which provides strategic insight to channel partners, SIs and technology integrators.
“Now in its fifth year, the VARIndia Star Nite Awards recognizes the performers in the 50-plus product and service categories, including servers, storage management, desktops, Internet application server software and networking hardware,” says Sanjay Mohapatra, Editor, VARIndia. “As the industry is growing, we have gone from strength to strength. Our intention is to boost the morale of performers and vendors so that they perform well for the betterment of the country. In the future, we will also address the rural areas in the country where seven hundred million people live in 600 thousand villages,” added Mohapatra.
Delivering the keynote speech, Shri R. Chandrashekhar spoke of the Government’s initiative to bring one hundred thousand villages throughout India under the computer network.’“This is a mammoth scheme ever attempted on this scale anywhere in the world.” Stressing the need to empower the rural area, he underscored the potential of ICT in the direction of integrating the rest of the country with those parts of India which are actually witnessing the progress in the ICT sector. “Apart from integrating the countryside into the mainstream economy, in course of time it is expected to empower the rural areas,” added Shri Chandrashekhar.
“India is unique in being not only a developing country but also a fairly developed country in the ICT sector. We are being watched closely to see whether our efforts to direct the power of ICT to improve our economy and in particular the rural economy is going to produce quantum jump in the spread of economic benefits,” said Shri Chandrashekhar.
Complimenting the organizers of VARIndia awards, he said, “These awards will provide not just recognition to a few people, but also add an impetus to the IT industry and also increase our pace.”
Speaking at the event, Shri Surendra Nath Tripathi, Commissioner-cum-Secretary – IT, Government of Orissa, said, “The lease-cum-development agreement was signed between the Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) and DLF for developing 54 acres of land opposite InfoCity in Chandaka Industrial Estate. The project envisages construction of 4.12 million sq. ft. of built-up space, of which a minimum of 60 per cent would be dedicated to IT.” Welcoming the participants to the coastal state of Orissa for doing business, Shri Tripathi made an impassioned plea to look into the strides the state has recently made in foreign direct investment (FDI) and ICT sector. “Orissa is attracting the attention of the world. The state has a committed investment of 4 hundred billion US dollars in the next three to five years,” said Shri Tripathi.
Congratulating VARIndia for organizing such a fabulous event, Dr. G. Narendra Kumar, Secretary, Department of IT and Administrative Reforms, Government of NCT of Delhi, said, “After making long strides in the software front, it is high time that India should make its presence felt in a vigorous way in the hardware arena also.”
Amidst the briefs presented by the distinguished guests and the rousing comic interludes provided by the anchors, Shri. R. Chandrashekhar, Dr. G. Narendra Kumar, Shri S. N. Tripathi, Commissioner-cum-Secretary – IT, Government of Orissa; Mr. Asoke K. Laha, President & Managing Director, Interra Information Technology; Mr. John N. McCaffrey, Director of International Businesses Development (EMEA & India), CMP Technology; Mr. Harry S. Ahn, Vice-President – IT, Samsung India; Mr. Sanjay Sharma, Vice-President, IT Division, Samsung India; Mr. Mukul Mathur, Country Manager–– Business Partners, IBM India; Mr. Moninder Jain, Director, South Asia, Logitec APAC; Mr. Krishnan Varadarajan, General Manager (Consumer Sales) HP India; Mr. Vishal Dhupar, Country Manager, Symantec (India) Corp.; Mr. Natesh Mani, Executive Director, New Office Group, Xerox India; Mr. Sunny John, Country Manager, Quantum India: Mr. Soumitra Agarwal, Marketing Director, NetApp; Mr. Sanjeev Mahapatra, Mr. Sanjay Mohapatra and Mr. Deepak Sahu took the stage to present the coveted VARIndia Awards to the IT companies, products and channel partners in more than 50 categories.
The highlight of the evening was the coveted VARIndia No. 1 Channel favourite company, which was bagged by Samsung India. Microsoft joined the likes of IBM, EMC, HP, Samsung, Oracle, Logitech, Intel and Trend Micro as this year’s big winners. For Console Gaming, Microsoft took the top honours as the Best Company of the Year and also took the awards for the Best Software suite for SMB as well as on their Innovative Technology. On the Database Management Software front, Oracle took the top honours and won the Best Company of the Year award. On the server side, IBM took the cake by earning the Best Company of the Year award, while HP won the Best Storage Solution Company award. The Inkjet Printer and MFD category saw the emergence of HP on the pedestal. The company also took the cake in Laser Printer & MFD category. Another category where HP made its presence felt on the top of the list is the Best PC – International Brand.
Intel was the big winner in both the Processor and Motherboard categories, sweeping the two categories and taking Best Company of the Year honours in both categories. Samsung swept the awards in the CRT Monitor, TFT Monitor, LFD, Potable HDD, OMS and Laser Printer & MFP – entry-level categories.
In the Security arena, Trend Micro, Symantec, Fortinet and CheckPoint shared the spotlight with Trend Micro taking the Most-Trusted Company of the Year as well as winning the category of Best Gateway Antivirus Software. Fortinet walked away with top scores for Best UTM (Unified Threat Management). Symantec won the best Antivirus Software, while the top honours for Best Firewall went to Checkpoint. Logitech made a great showing in various categories in Input devices, which included Keyboard and Mouse, High-end Speaker, Webcam and PC Headsets winning the Best Company of the Year award for each category.
Cisco dominated the Networking Solution scene and bagged the Best Company of the Year award. Network Appliance did the same in the NAS Product category, winning the Best Company of the Year award. And, of course, it is no surprise that in ERP Solutions, SAP once again took the top prize as the Best Company of the Year. TVS Electronics had a repeat performance as the Best Company of the Year in Mechanical Keyboard.
For Accounting Software, Tally solutions emerged the winners to take the top honours, while eSys was named as the Fastest Growing Distribution Company. HCL Infosystems dominated the best PC – Indian Brand, while HCL Peripherals was adjudged as the Best Thin Client Technology Provider. Apart from these, APC for Power Management Solutions, Canon for Digital Imaging Solutions, Kodak for Digital camera, Simmtronics Semiconductors for Memory Module, Infocus Corporation for Projector, Kobian Electronics for cabinet, Acer India for entry- level notebook, Toshiba for MFD Laser (A3), Atrie Technology for DSL Modem, Quantum for Tape Drive won the top honours in their respective fields. Tivoli IBM India was awarded the best technology management solutions company, while ViaSat India was honoured with Editor Choice Award for VSAT hardware vendor.
Genius broke into the arena of Upcoming Brand in the Lifestyle Products category.
VARIndia Star Nite Awards cannot be complete if channel partners are not felicitated on the occasion. The event also witnessed the felicitations of best resellers, which included Peripherals Solutions (Pvt.) Ltd of Delhi, Shanti Impex of Mumbai, Premiere Computer & Communication of Bangalore, Spectrum InfoTech of Chennai and Supreme Technologies Pvt. Ltd of Kolkata. The awards for the best Network Integrators went to Telexcell Information Systems Ltd of Delhi, Kaybee InfoTech Pvt. Ltd of Mumbai, Leading Edge Technology & Consultants (P) Ltd of Kolkata, Forth Dimension of Chennai and Frontier Business Systems Pvt. Ltd of Bangalore. Last but not the least, the vendors took the opportunity to give exposure to their products by setting up stalls, which were visited by the guests in large numbers. The vendors included HP, Samsung, APC, TVSE, Quantum and Xerox. The VARIndia STAR Nite event was supported by the leading IT vendors like Samsung, HP, Intel, EMC, SAP, TVS, Canon, Quantum, Checkpoint, Xerox, eSys, HCL and Trend Micro.
VARIndia also honoured the chief guest and the guests of honour with mementos.
Xerox India also took the opportunity to facilitate its best performing partners that included Simmtronics Semiconductors Ltd, Aakash technologies Ltd, Cache Technologies Pvt Ltd, Srishti Systems and M C Modi & Company.
VARIndia Publisher Sanjeev Mahapatra offered votes of thanks. Expressing satisfaction at the successful completion of the event, he thanked the channel partners and the sponsors of the event.
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