HP emerges as the most favored vendor for channels

New Delhi,

March 18th, 2008

The eighth Channel Choice Awards conducted by the DQ Channels saw HP emerge
as the favorite vendor of channel community as the company walked away with the
Gold award in most of the categories while facing a tough competition by IBM and
Lenovo.

HP turned out winner in five categories in the Channel Choice awards while in
the Channel Champion category HP and IBM had a tight competition as they both
bagged gold awards in four categories. Sharing his thoughts on the outcome of
the awards, Sameer Mathur, Head, Solution Partners Organization, Personal System
Group, HP India said, "From a market perspective this means a lot to us.
Our marketing strategies are based on partner support for all the products. This
award is very encouraging and we will make efforts to continue and retain this
position in the years ahead."

In the branded desktop and notebook category, HP and Lenovo maintained their
position as winner and runner-up respectively. In the X86 server category IBM
bagged the gold award followed by HP. In the Inkjet printer and laser printer
category HP was declared the winner followed by Canon. In Dot Matrix printer
category, Epson walked away with gold award and TVSE settled for the runner up
position. In the digital camera category, Canon made its way ahead and was
followed by Kodak.

In the race of power, APC continued to rule the market followed by Microtek.
In security solution, Symantec was in the spotlight while Quick Heal made its
entry for the first time by becoming the runner up in this category. Enterprise
application software saw Microsoft rule the market followed by Oracle.

In the category of motherboards as well as processor, Intel once again marked
its presence on the top whereas in hard drive segment, it was Seagate that held
the top position.

In secondary storage solution, HP led the pack whereas Sony displaced IBM by
becoming the runner up. In wired networking category, D-Link walked away with
gold award and Netgear was a step behind. In structured cabling, Tyco became the
winner whereas Systimax maintained its position as runner up like the year
before.

Market research firm IDC India that used the IT-Reseller Satisfaction
Measurement Model carried out the channel satisfaction survey. The survey was
done for a wide range of IT products covering leading brands in the market. It
included 19 cities across the country and the number of respondents was 898. The
top 13 brands were considered for final evaluation based on the points given by
the channel community. The 13 brands included, Acer, Canon, D-Link, Epson, HCL,
HP, IBM, Intel, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, Seagate, TVS-E and Wipro.

Out of the 13 companies, four companies scored above 76 percent for overall
satisfaction that included HP at 78.5 percent, IBM at 78.1 percent, Lenovo at
76.2 percent and Acer at 76.1 percent.

The winners were judged on various parameters such as product quality,
marketing support, after sale support, commercial terms, online support,
relationship management and brand image by their channel partners.