The Twelfth Annual CRN Channel Champions Winners to Be Announced March 10th

CMP Media's CRN, the newsweekly for builders of technology, today announced that the twelfth annual Channel Champions awards will be published in the Monday, March 10 issue of CRN. CRN will also publicly honor the Channel Champions at an awards ceremony on March 10 at CMP's XChange Solution Provider Conference in New Orleans.

The Channel Champions Study was designed to measure overall Solution Provider perceptions of vendor products and services. The result is a premier resource used by Solution Providers throughout the industry to evaluate vendors and their programs.

The Channel Champions survey is the largest and broadest-based Solution Provider market study in the industry. The 2003 version of Channel Champions survey was the most competitive and comprehensive ever conducted. Between November 2002 and January 2003, nearly 2,350 Solution Providers rated 103 vendors in 20 different product categories, providing a total of 9,400 individual vendor ratings. 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.

The Solution Providers that participated in the study were chosen at random from CRN's subscriber list. Solution Providers rated the vendors on a series of technical and channel-related criteria. Before being allowed to rate vendors in a particular category, Solution Providers were pre-qualified to ensure they actually worked in the category, were familiar with the products, and had a significant business relationship with the vendor or vendors being rated. Solution Providers were asked to specify the strength of their business relationship with the vendors and products in the category. The relationships were categorized in three ways: key strategic partner, major partner, or minor partner.

The survey underwent several changes this year. CRN completely revised the channel evaluation criteria to provide more detail about those aspects of vendor programs most critical to Solution Providers. Several new categories were added, including VPNs, portals, storage management software and IP telephony.

The survey rated vendors in 20 key product and service categories. The 2003 Channel Champions categories include: Portals, Server Software Infrastructure, Application Integration Tools, Databases, Storage Management Software, Anti-virus Software, VPNs, Firewalls, Intrusion Detection, Networking Hardware, Network Management Software, IP Telephony, Data Services, Wireless LANs, Notebooks, UPS, Flat Panel Displays, Network Color Laser Printers, Network Storage, and Servers.

"The Channel Champions survey highlights what is important to the Solution Provider community when they evaluate vendors and select the products and services to recommend to their customers," said Lisa MacKenzie, publisher of CRN. "We are looking forward to the Channel Champions awards ceremony later this month and want to give a special thanks to the sponsors of this year's awards -- AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Symantec."

Michael Vizard, editor in chief of CRN added, "This year the methodology of the survey was revised to provide an unprecedented level of detail about the aspects of vendor channel programs most critical to Solution Providers. For the first time, specific results for each vendor based on the size of the solution providers are reported. The awards this year highlight the winners in each category based on ratings by all solution providers as a group, as well as ratings by smaller solution providers only and larger solution providers only. The breakpoint between small and large Solution Providers is $5 million in annual revenue."

About CRN

CRN is the nation's leading trade newsweekly that provides timely industry news and analysis for solution providers, integrators and e-businesses building technology solutions. It is the most trusted source of news for 117,500 channel professionals. A media leader in the high-tech industry, CRN provides the most comprehensive suite of online resources: http://www.crn.com/, the site where industry news breaks first; CRN Direct, a daily newsletter that brings personalized news to solution providers' desktops; and CRN Broadcast News, a daily news broadcast covering the solution provider channel and the industry.

About CMP Media LLC

CMP Media LLC (http://www.cmp.com/) is a leading integrated media company providing essential information and marketing services to the entire technology spectrum-the builders, sellers and users of technology worldwide. Capitalizing on its editorial strength, CMP is uniquely positioned to offer marketers comprehensive, integrated media solutions tailored to meet their individual needs. Its diverse products and services include newspapers, magazines, Internet products, research, direct marketing services, education and training, trade shows and conferences, and custom publishing.

   Contact:
   Ramona Castaldo
   CRN
   516.562.7219
   rcastald@cmp.com

SOURCE: CMP Media LLC; CRN

CONTACT: Ramona Castaldo of CRN, +1-516-562-7219, rcastald@cmp.com

Web site: http://www.cmp.com/
http://www.crn.com/

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