IBM Named 2010 CRN Channel Champion as Top Vendor for Middleware and Midrange Servers

ARMONK, N.Y., March 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) was named a 2010 CRN Channel Champion as the top vendor in the Middleware and Midrange Server categories -- and was recognized for its support satisfaction in the area of Volume Servers. The CRN Channel Champions study measures overall Solution Provider perceptions of vendor products and services, and is the largest and broadest technology integrator market study in the industry.  The study is a premier resource used by VARs and technology integrators throughout the industry to evaluate vendors and their programs.  IBM was named the winner in the following categories:

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Middleware: Overall winner and three subcategory wins, including: technical satisfaction, support satisfaction and financial factor. These included IBM WebSphere Application Server, IBM WebSphere MQ, IBM WebSphere Message Broker, IBM WebSphere Process Server, IBM WebSphere Portal Server

Midrange Servers: Overall winner and three subcategory wins, including: technical satisfaction, support satisfaction and financial factors. These included IBM BladeCenter, IBM System x, IBM Power AIX

Volume Servers: Subcategory winner in the area of support satisfaction

"Being named a CRN Channel Champion is an honor and reflects our ongoing commitment to help IBM Business Partners succeed and deliver value to their clients," said Rich Hume, general manager of IBM Global Business Partners & Mid-Market. "We continue to make significant investments in high-performance technologies and workload optimized solutions to support the expanded role that business partners play in our strategy."

The CRN Channel Champions survey was conducted between December 2009 and February 2010 and rated 100 vendors in 21 key product and service categories.  Solution Providers were chosen at random from CRN's subscriber list and were prequalified to ensure that they worked in the category, were familiar with the products and had a significant relationship with the vendor(s) being rated. Many respondents were qualified to rate more than one vendor.  CRN specified that VARs and technology integrators rate only those vendors with which they had either a strategic partner type of business relationship, when possible. Vendors rated in each category were chosen on the basis of market-share data provided by major research firms. In the case where market-share data was not available, vendors were chosen by CRN senior editorial staff recommendations.  VARs and technology integrators were asked to rate the relative importance of the individual evaluation criteria. To derive the overall score for each vendor, the raw satisfaction scores were weighted according to the relative importance of the evaluation criteria.

"Each year we survey the Solution Provider community to learn their satisfaction with the technology vendors they work closely with to deliver solutions to their customers. This survey is an essential resource for the Channel community," said Kelley Damore, VP, Editorial Director, Everything Channel.  "We congratulate these leading technology vendors on this recognition."

Channel Champions award winners and related study will be published in the April 26, 2010 issue and online at www.channelweb.com.

About Everything Channel (www.everythingchannel.com, www.channelweb.com)

Everything Channel, headquartered in Framingham, MA, is a technology marketing and sales solutions company.  Through its "Complete Technology Channel Solution," Everything Channel offers the right business tools to accelerate technology sales.  From branding and recruiting to marketing and sales, Everything Channel offers technology marketers the unmatched breadth and depth of global brands and market intelligence combined with unparalleled audience loyalty and credibility serving all technology sales channels through an extensive database.  Everything Channel provides innovative field sales and marketing solutions to the sellers of technology to achieve measurable and significant results.

About United Business Media Limited

UBM (UBM.L) focuses on two principal activities: worldwide information distribution, targeting and monitoring; and, the development and monetisation of B2B communities and markets. UBM's businesses inform markets and serve professional commercial communities -- from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry traders, from farmers to pharmacists -- with integrated events, online, print and business information products. Our 6,500 staff in more than 30 countries are organised into specialist teams that serve these communities, bringing buyers and sellers together, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently. For more information, go to www.ubm.com.

SOURCE IBM