HP is the Channels' Choice

DQ Channels, the voice of the solution provider community in India, held its
sixth Channels' Choice Awards night at the Indian Habitat Center in New Delhi on
March 16, 2009. The event saw over 250 channel partners and vendors converge to
collect their coveted trophies while the others cheered the winners.

The night started with a short video presentation on green IT in which
industry stalwarts spoke about the measures they were taking in their companies
to encourage green IT and by when they expect to recover the costs.

Winning Combination: Team HP poses with Neelam Dhawan, MD-India, HP and Pradeep Gupta, Publisher, DQ Channels; after being crowned as the Channel Champion. 700 channel partners across 19 cities of the country reiterated that HP was the most popular IT company and HP walked away with 13 trophies in different categories during the awards event

 

Pradeep Gupta handing over the Channel Champion Silver award to Jangoo Dalal, MD and CEO, D-Link. The company took home seven awards in all

Speaking about the slowdown and its effects on the industry, Prasanto K Roy,
Chief Editor, DQ Channels pointed out that there is a positive side to the
economic scenario. “Everyone is becoming cost effective. Businesses are looking
at reducing costs and that is where the opportunity lies for the channel and
vendor community,” said Roy. While green IT has been around for the past few
year, it is no more limited to being “fashionable”, it is on the contrary
critical to some businesses. Energy is in fact half of a companies operating
expenditure and that as Roy pointed out, is where the community needs to find
their opportunities. “If you can show people the benefits, give them packages in
tune with the times, there is tremendous potential,” advised Roy. Drawing a link
between the channel and vendor community, Roy stated that the fact that vendors
are understanding the importance of the channel community is evident from the
increased investments and interaction with the channel.

Arun Rao and Chandrahas Panigrahi of HP India receiving the trophy in the Desktops category from Puneet Singhal, President, Computer Media Dealers Association (CMDA), New Delhi	Diptesh Ghosh of HP India receiving the trophy in the Notebooks category from Puneet Singhal, President, Computer Media Dealers Association (CMDA), New Delhi

 

Ketan Patel of HP India receiving the trophy in the X86 Servers category from Puneet Singhal, President, Computer Media Dealers Association (CMDA), New Delhi	Nikhil Kumar of Intel bagged the award in the Motherboards category

 

Dinesh Kapur of APC India won the trophy in the UPS category. Ajay Singla, President, Panipat Channel Dealers Association gave away the award	Sanjay and Kailash Katkar of Quick Heal receiving the trophy in the Security Software category from Ajay Singla, President, Panipat Channel Dealers Association

 

Swaminathan Babu of Microsoft India receiving the trophy in the Enterprise Application Software category from Ajay Singla, President, Panipat Channel Dealers Association	Arun Kakkar, President, Ghaziabad Computer Association handling the trophy in the Inkjet Printers category to Parikshit Tomar of HP

 

Ajay Rawal of HP receiving the trophy in the Laser Printers category from Arun Kakkar, President, Ghaziabad Computer Association	Gurpreet Brar of Samsung receiving the trophy in the Monitors category from Arun Kakkar, President, Ghaziabad Computer Association

 

Ranjeet Koul of Intel receiving the trophy in the Processors category from Arun Kakkar, President, Ghaziabad Computer Association	Rajesh Khurana of Seagate receiving the trophy in the Hard Disk Drive category from Arun Kakkar, President, Ghaziabad Computer Association

 

Yogesh Sharma of D-Link receiving the Silver award in the Product Quality category from Saket Kapur, Secretary, Progressive Channels Association of IT (PCAIT)	Audience at the event

 

Shital Nahar, President, CMDA Pune in conversation with Puneet Singhal, President, CMDA Delhi. Also seen in the picture Sujeet Narula, Joint Secretary, PCAIT	Kapil Wadhwa of Champion Computers, Bharat Bhushan of RR Systems, Rajesh Khurana of Seagate and Sujeet Narula of Associated Business Computers catch up

 

Rohit Luthra of Progression Infonet with Devendra Taneja of PC Solutions	CIRCLE OF FRIENDS: Bharat Bhushan of RR Systems, Arvind Chandrashekar of AMD, Asim Raina of Cybermedia, Taposh Chatterjee of Peripheral Solutions, Somesh Narang of Elcom, Kapil Wadhwa of Champion Computers and Ajaya Kumar of Park Group

Next was a presentation by Deepak Kumar, GM-Computing, Peripherals,
Communication, IDC India who shared details about the method in which the survey
was conducted and the attributes that were considered.

(L-R) Neelam Dawan of HP, Jangoo Dalal of D-Link, Prasanto K Roy of CyberMedia and Manisha Sood of SanDisk during the event

The award announcements were interspersed with light quiz questions that got
the crowd thinking and at times roaring with laughter at the amusing answers
given by a few.

Receiving the Channel Champion Gold award, Neelam Dhawan, MD, HP India
attributed HP's success to team work. “It is an honor receiving the award, which
couldn't have happened with out the channel or team work between our teams at HP
and the channel. We won 13 awards out of the 32 that were given out tonight. The
awards we didn't get show the areas we need to work on for the following year
and it is part of our immediate scorecard,” said Dhawan.

Manoj Grover of HP receiving the trophy in the Tape Drive category from Arun Kakkar, President, Ghaziabad Computer Association	Jangoo Dalal of D-Link receiving the trophy in the Wired Networking category from Manish Agarwal, President, Uttaranchal IT Trade Association. D-Link also won the trophy in the Structured Cabling category

Yogesh Sharma of D-Link taking away the trophy in the Wireless Networking category from Manish Agarwal, President, Uttaranchal IT Trade Association	Jangoo Dalal and Yogesh Sharma of D-Link India receiving the Gold award in the Commercial Terms category from Anees Khalfay, President, Trader Association of IT (TAIT), Mumbai

Jaivinder Singh Gill of Lenovo receiving the Silver award in the Commercial Terms category from Anees Khalfay, President, Trader Association of IT (TAIT), Mumbai. Lenovo also won the Silver award in the Online Support and Gold award in Relationship Management category	Ravirajan of HP receiving the Gold award in the Online Support category from Anees Khalfay, President, Trader Association of IT (TAIT), Mumbai

Manoj Grover and Ketan Patel of HP receiving the Silver award in the Relationship Management category from Anees Khalfay, President, Trader Association of IT (TAIT), Mumbai	Saket Kapur, Secretary, Progressive Channels Association of IT (PCAIT) handling the Gold award to Ravirajan of HP India in the After-Sales Support category

Yogesh Sharma of D-Link receiving the Silver award in the After-Sales Support category from Saket Kapur, Secretary, Progressive Channels Association of IT (PCAIT)	V Krishnan of HP receiving the Gold award in the Brand Image category from Saket Kapur, Secretary, Progressive Channels Association of IT (PCAIT)

Eashwari Deshpande of Intel receiving the Silver award in the Brand Image category from Saket Kapur, Secretary, Progressive Channels Association of IT (PCAIT)	Deepti Dang, Kirti Joshi and V Krishnan of HP India receiving the Gold award in the Marketing Support category from Saket Kapur, Secretary, Progressive Channels Association of IT (PCAIT)

Drawing the evening to a close, Ibrahim Ahmad, Group Editor, DQ Channels
pointed out that though the economic situation was down the mood was not which
was important as that would determine how we all move forward. He also
highlighted the trend of vendors moving towards the hinterlands of India and how
in this aspect too vendors would need the help of the channel to succeed.

The gathering exchanged notes and caught up over drinks and dinner.