Happy Friday, and welcome to Distribution Watch, our weekly look at the distribution space and what it means to you. This week as we do our best to stay warm, we’re taking a look at news from Novus, FineEye Color Solutions and Tech Data (TECD), so stoke the fire and grab your Snuggie and let’s commence our watching.

Novus: The boutique distributor of telecommunications and IP equipment has achieved the Microsoft Partner Network Gold Communications competency, which means the company has met certain technical, sales and marketing standards.

According to the company, achieving Gold Communications competency validates Novus’ expertise with Lync and provides the company with a broad set of benefits with which to better serve current and future customers.

“Achieving Microsoft Gold Communications competency as a value-added-distributor is rare, and we’re one of a select few in the world with the designation,” said Chris Meehan, managing partner at Novus. “Earning Microsoft Gold Communications status solidifies our role as a leading provider of Microsoft Lync solutions, which is fast becoming the unified communications platform of choice for companies large and small. It is important for both integrators and their enterprise clients to have the assurance that the entire value chain is Microsoft certified.”

FineEye Color Solutions: The specialty professional graphics distributor has added BenQ America’s Professional Graphics (PG) series of certified color management monitors.

"FineEye Color Solutions' experience and expertise in proofing and color management is world class," said John Sweeney, Business Development manager for BenQ. "They have an excellent track record in helping launch new color technologies to the graphics industry and we're looking forward to a mutually beneficial partnership as we raise awareness of our new PG Series of monitors purposely built for the creative class.”

Included in the lineup is the self-calibrating PG2401PT 24-inch monitor, which covers 100 percent CMYK and 99 percent of the Adobe RGB color space. It is designed to take advantage of cloud-based color proofing services, such as Adobe's Creative Cloud and PantoneLIVE. The monitor is FograCert Softproof Monitor-certified, as well as SWOP and GRACoL certified by the IDEAlliance.

Tech Data: The global distributorhas been named Best Performance Distributor by Newegg during Newegg’s 2014 Eggie Awards.

Tech Data was recognized for its outstanding business performance, product selection and customer experience.

"We are honored to be named the Best Performance Distributor by Newegg, exemplifying the importance of working together to accomplish mutual success," said Pete Peterson, senior vice president, U.S. Sales at Tech Data. "Tech Data is dedicated to providing a best-in-class customer experience and business performance for our channel partners. We thank Newegg for their valuable partnership."

Newegg celebrates the Eggies each year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Now in its 10th year, the coveted Eggie awards recognize noteworthy contributions from the company's valued customers and vendors. Newegg recognized Tech Data for its loyalty, strategic business objectives and high levels of dedication and engagement.

And so wraps up another edition of Distribution Watch. Come on back next week so see what we’ve got our eyes trained on. Until then, stay safe (and stay warm).