The 5th Integrator ICT Champion Awards Gala held on the 18th of May at The Oberoi hotel in Dubai was a spectacular event that was attended by the crème de la crème of the region’s ICT industry. The awards celebrated the winners of the 2017 edition of the Integrator ICT Champion Awards based on an online industry survey that was conducted for over month and included shortlisted nominees in various categories.
The awards were hosted by JNS Media International, publishers of VAR Magazine and The Integrator. The 5th edition of the Integrator awards ICT Champion Awards followed on the heels of an equally successful 11th edition of the VAR COC Awards hosted by JNS Media International held last month at the Shangri-la hotel in Dubai. While ‘The Integrator ICT Champion Awards’ celebrate the best performances in the value side ICT ecosystem, the ‘VAR COC Awards’ recognize the industry’s best performances from the volume business segment of ICT.
The Integrator ICT Champion Awards, which were unveiled in 2013 have received exemplary recognition in the industry. The 5th edition of the awards were sponsored by Spire Solutions, Toshiba, Linksys, Exclusive Networks and D-Link who were among the Gold sponsors and Seagate, Finesse, Centra Hub Technologies, ITWare Condo Protego as well as Sophos who were the silver sponsors. The gift sponsors of the day were PNY Technologies and WD.
Mr. Vivek Sharma, Founder and CEO of JNS Media International said, “These awards recognize some great performing companies in the region over the past year and I would like congratulate all winners. While some repeat winners revealed their resilience, several new winners of this year’s awards also emphasize the inherent dynamism of the ICT market.”
Among the awards categories of the day, the ‘Cloud Computing Vendor of the Year’ category was won by Microsoft, who is among the top vendors in the space and offers a comprehensive range of cloud computing products as well as services.
The second category of the day ‘Converged Infrastructure Vendor of the Year’ was won by Dell EMC, a vindication of its claims to be a leader in converged infrastructure solutions. Avaya was a repeat winner of the ‘Unified Communications Vendor of the Year’ category and the win reflects the strong market share it continues to have in the region including strategic project wins.
The ‘SMB Storage Vendor of the Year’ was won by Western Digital, a manufacturer that has consolidated its portfolio for enterprise with large capacity hard drives and SSDs. The ‘Enterprise Storage Vendor of the Year’ was NetApp, a vendor whose solutions are designed to enable clients to manage data across on-premises and public cloud resources, to best meet their needs.
Linksys that has steadily strengthened its SMB portfolio won the top spot in the category ‘SMB Networking Vendor the Year’. In the Enterprise Networking Vendor of the year, Cisco, a company that continues to have a formidable lead in the networking segment and offers a strong vision for the IoT era and won with the maximum number of votes.
In the category ‘Endpoint Security Software Vendor of the Year’, Sophos, a company that has an extensive portfolio of next-generation endpoint and network security solutions, emerged the winner.
The ‘Network Security Appliance Vendor of the Year’ was Sonicwall that has been among the leaders in next generation firewalls and has a strong channel focus, that have helped it create a strong regional success story.
The winner of the ‘IP Surveillance Solutions Vendor of the Year’ category was Axis Communications, a manufacturer that has been a front runner in the IP Security segment with a formidable portfolio of cameras and NVRs and has a strong presence in the region.
The top recognition in the ‘Access Control Solutions Vendor of the Year’ went to Genetec, a vendor that develops open-architecture software, hardware and cloud-based services for the physical security and public safety industry and has considerably strengthened its regional presence.
The winner of the ‘Enterprise Mobility Management Vendor of the Year’ was Kaspersky Lab, a leading endpoint security vendor that in its latest endpoint security product for Businesses includes simplified deployment, protection and management of mobile devices.
The top honors in the ‘Data Center Solutions Vendor of the Year’ category went to Nexans, a leading player in the structured cabling market and has attractive offerings for the growing data center market.
The ‘ERP Vendor of the Year’ category was won by SAP, a company that has been a dominant player not just in the UAE but globally with an extensive portfolio of ERP products.
The ‘Network Management Vendor of the Year’ category saw ManageEngine, a company that is consolidating and making further inroads in global markets in the domain of real time IT Network Management solutions, emerge the winner.
The ‘Networking VAD of the Year’ category was Aptec, an Ingram Micro company and a regional partner for several leading enterprise technology vendors across storage, networking, and server technologies.
In the category ‘Information Security VAD of the Year’, Spire Solutions, a company that focuses on bringing advanced incident detection and response technologies to market, walked away with top honors.
The ‘Storage VAD of the Year’ category saw StorIT Distribution FZCO yet again emerge a winner, a recognition of its forte in the data management, cloud and storage domain. FVC, a company that offers a large number of technologies to provide high definition and high quality communication hardware and services to allow quality collaboration was the winner of the ‘Unified Communications VAD of the Year’.
The winner of the ‘Enterprise VAD of the Year’ was Exclusive Networks, a company that is one of the leading distributors of Enterprise solutions in MEA region and offers partners a full range of support.
The Awards included several recognitions for integrators. The ‘Networking Integrator of the Year’ was IXTEL Technologies, one of the faster growing integrators of the region that offers a range of solutions in emerging technologies of cloud computing, virtualization, and mobility and infrastructure solutions. The winner of the ‘Storage Integrator of the Year’ category was Condo Protego, a company that has a strong focus on storage systems, data availability, management, protection and recovery.
The top spot in the category ‘Security Integrator of the Year’ was won by Nanjgel Solutions, a company that provides solutions around data security, network security, application security, user security as well as security intelligence and analysis. The winner of the ‘Enterprise Applications Integrator of the Year’ category was ITware, a company that is focusing on Enterprise solutions for last 15 years covering multiple domains of manufacturing, supply chain, Services and Retail with an impressive customer base in all these domains providing ERP and BI services.
In the category ‘BFSI Integrator the Year’, Finesse a company that provides services to over 60 banks & financial institutions internationally got the top recognition. The ‘Managed Services Provider of the Year’ category saw a repeat winner in OMA Emirates, a company that has been a cutting edge provider of technology for the payment industry and continues to see success with it Managed Services offerings.
The ‘Emerging Vendor of the Year’ recognition went to Centra Hub Technologies, a company that is offering solutions with highly scalable capabilities to suit organizations of varying scale and size across industries. The ‘Emerging Integrator of the Year’ went to AGC Networks, a company that has scaled up operations globally over the past several years, has a very strong portfolio across domains and is making strong inroads in the region.
The ‘Visionary Vendor of the Year’ category saw Sentinel One, a vendor that is carving out a bold innovative strategy in a domain. The top recognition in the ‘Visionary Integrator of the Year’ category went to Help AG, a company that is a leading cyber security services, solutions and consultancy provider in the region.
The ‘Product Innovation Vendor of the Year’ category recognized Seagate for its continued efforts at product innovations in storage. The winner of the ‘Channel Champion Vendor of the Year’ category was D-Link, a company that has been quite committed to growing opportunities for the integrator segment in the region in the SMB networking space.
