IBM Awarded Highest Distinction For Channel Satisfaction And Executive Leadership

VARBusiness magazine’s Annual Report Card yields five category and sub-category awards to IBM; CMP Channel Group honors IBM’s Donn Atkins as their Channel Executive of the Year

St. Louis, MO - 16 Aug 2006: The IBM Corporation (NYSE: IBM) has been recognized by solution-provider partners and readers of CMP Technology’s VARBusiness for the outstanding satisfaction levels that it provides to them and has been lauded in this publication’s Annual Report Card (ARC) award program. Based on the results of a survey spanning over 5,000 channel partners, IBM received ARC awards for Advanced Desktops & Workstations (Intellistation), Data and Information Management software (IBM DB2 version 9 for Linux, Unix and Windows), Storage Management Software (IBM Tivoli Storage Manager product family), as well as Web/SOA Infrastructure & Integration Software (IBM WebSphere Application Server.) IBM also won a sub-category award for Support and Partnership in the Entry Level Server Category (IBM System x.)
At the August 15th awards ceremony held at the CMP Channel Group XChange ‘06 Conference in St. Louis, CMP Channel Group President, Robert Faletra also announced that Donn Atkins, general manager of IBM Global Business Partners was being honored with the CMP’s Channel Group’s top executive distinction, Channel Executive of the Year. Mr. Faletra explained “The 2006 Channel Executive of the Year award is about leadership. It is about a person who leads by example, who drives business innovation in the channel to new heights and who has the courage to stand up for his convictions. We are pleased to present this award to IBM’s Donn Atkins. He is an individual who strategically manages his company’s worldwide partner business and has tremendous influence in forging the future of IBM’s large and diverse partner community”.

This is the second year that a panel of Channel Group executives and editors at VARBusiness and CRN has jointly selected an industry leader to receive the Channel Executive of the Year award. Among the criteria used to evaluate the candidates were partner satisfaction, the strategic importance of the channel to that company, the executive’s standing within their organization and the executive’s ability to drive change.

IBM has been a continuous recipient of CMP Channel Group awards over the past three years. Since 2004, it has received 17 overall category ARC awards and 24 CRN Channel Champion Awards. In addition, IBM has been the overall Channel Champion for two consecutive years. “These awards reflect our Business Partners’ appreciation of IBM’s consistency, in contrast to some other vendors, as well as our array of partner programs and innovative product and services offerings,” said Donn Atkins, general manager, IBM Global Business Partners. “It’s clear that our partners value all our efforts to earn their loyalty.”

Now in its 21st year, the VARBusiness ARC Awards recognize outstanding partner programs in 19 product and service categories including desktop computers, servers, storage management, Internet application server software and networking hardware.

Research for the VARBusiness Annual Report Card was conducted by Bernett Research Services, a Boston-based data collection company, and Answers Research, the Solana Beach, Calif.-based market research and consulting firm.

About IBM
With 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate, IBM is the world’s largest information technology company. IBM is a leading provider of On Demand Business solutions and is dedicated to helping companies, Business Partners and developers leverage the potential of the Internet and network computing across a wide range of businesses and industries. The company offers a host of cross-industry and industry-specific solutions designed to meet the needs of companies of all sizes. For more information on partnering with IBM, please visit: www.ibm.com/partnerworld.

About VARBusiness Magazine
For the past 19 years, VARBusiness’ strategic resources have been the gateway to the Solution Provider community. VARBusiness provides strategic insight for technology integrators through industry-defining research, in-depth editorial, channel events and innovative Web services, enabling these IT professionals to make educated decisions for their businesses, partnerships and customers. VARBusiness has been the recipient of numerous industry awards for both editorial content and design. Additional information about VARBusiness products, events and services, is available at its Web site, www.varbusiness.com.

Contact Information

Jennifer L. Mann

IBM Media Relations

IBM

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