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Welcome to the MicroScope Awards for Channel Excellence 2013. Here you will find all of the details of the various categories and a chance to vote on those channel players that you think deserve to be recognised for all of their hard work and excellence in service delivery.

Plenty of channel firms have entered the ACEs and the judges have cast their eyes over the submissions and drawn up the final shortlist, which you can now vote on.

This is the sixth year of the ACEs and many resellers, distributors and vendors have already enjoyed the moment of recognition that comes with winning a MicroScope award. Another group will be joining those ranks of previous winners in June.

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SME reseller of the year
Entrants to this category focus on serving the needs of the small and medium customer base.

Vertical market reseller of the year
Entrants to this category have a proven track record selling and developing services to a specific vertical market including: health, finance, education, manufacturing and retail.

Managed service provider of the year
Entrants to this category provide a managed service in the following areas: managed print services, desktop maintenance services, and back up and disaster recovery services.

Innovative reseller of the year
Entrants to this category are at the cutting edge providing support for some of the emerging technologies and customer problems such as consumerisation and mobility.

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Security distributor of the year
Increasingly those at the top of the tree in this market will understand it is not just about products and training but also about adding value to help resellers through the minefield of emerging products and the opportunities thrown up by convergence. The winner will have shown that they have adapted to the changing landscape in the market to provide their resellers with even greater opportunities.

Storage distributor of the year
Storage technology continues to advance, with ever quicker and higher-capacity products hitting the market. The worthy winner of this award will add value and deliver excellent service and support to both vendors and dealers.

Software distributor of the year
The days of shrink-wrapped products are long gone and a distributor in this space now has to help resellers manoeuvre to a world of hosted software and different licensing models. The winner will have shown leadership in that transition as well as excellence in delivery of software service to both vendors and resellers.

Networking distributor of the year
The network has become the crucial component of cloud and mobility demands from customers and the winner of this award will have taken a leading role in convergence as well as understanding and translating for resellers the current infrastructure opportunities provided by the web.

Hardware distributor of the year
Seen by some as the engine room of distribution, the winner of this award will have not only developed an unmatched record on product availability and support, but will be guiding resellers into a world of solutions rather than simply shifting tin.

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Security

Entries could cover products and/or projects in financial security, cloud security, midmarket security and best overall use of security.

Storage

Entries could cover products and/or projects in data backup, disaster recovery, SME storage and best overall use of storage.

Networking

Entries could cover products and/or projects in mobile computing, unified comms, WAN and best overall use of networking.

Software

Entries could cover products and/or projects in enterprise desktop, business intelligence, SME software and best overall use of software.

Cloud computing

Entries could cover products and/or projects in cloud storage, cloud security, cloud networking and best overall use of cloud.

Judges

  • Name
    Simon Quicke Editor, MicroScope

    Simon Quicke has been the Editor of MicroScope for a decade and has covered the channel industry for 16 years. He graduated in Politics and Government, before pursuing a career in Journalism, where he took further study and gained a PG Diploma in Newspaper Journalism and an MA in Historical Research.

  • Name
    Clive Longbottom Service Director, Quocirca

    Clive is a service director at industry analyst group, Quocirca, specialising in how technology can be used to facilitate business processes. Taking a pragmatic view of technology, he is only interested in what IT can do to provide tangible business benefit, rather than what is just "of the moment". Quocirca's output is freely available at http://www.quocirca.com.

  • Ian French Founder, SICEO

    Siceo was originally formed by Ian French, an IT industry veteran with over 32 years experience in manufacturing, distribution and value added reselling. Ian has been a main board director of UK and US listed companies and served as CEO, MD and EMEA President for different organisation. His experience gained in running global businesses with multi-billion dollar revenues and complex geographical structures is now being applied to helping other channel involved companies to succeed. His vast range of contacts at all levels of industry give him unparalleled access to senior decision makers and management of a wide range of vendor and channel organisations. Ian is also a popular speaker at many industry events.

  • Name
    Keith Warburton CloudPresence

    Keith Warburton has spent the majority of his career providing guidance to ICT professional - from sales, to consultancy for national and international clients, to moulding businesses into a national industry association. Among the 18 years spent at The Technology Channels Association, he played a major role in the transition the TCA into becoming the UK Channel Community of CompTIA. He also concluded his 24 year career with Ordermakers as the Managing Director and is now the Publisher and Editor-In-Chief of Telepresence and VideoConferencing Insight News.