Top Partners: The Best of the Best

The winter and spring awards season has come to close — not just for movies, TV and music, but for the channel as well.

Some of the biggest names in the industry have handed out recognition to their top vendor and channel partners; honorees include large suppliers, master agents/tech distributors and smaller solution-provider businesses.

This one-stop slide show reminds us who took home hardware for their work in 2015 with such giants as CenturyLink, AT&T, Vonage, Cisco, Avaya and more.

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Master agent Intelisys is the latest recipient of CenturyLink’s Million-Dollar Reward for sales growth. Now complete, the telco giant’s biggest incentive program recognized any partner that grows its business by $2 million in monthly recurring revenue from 2010-2015. Lightstream Communications and Agent Alliance were among the other CenturyLink honorees.

The rest of CenturyLink’s honorees can be found here.

The AT&T Alliance Channel awarded three partners its highest recognition. PrestoTech Solutions, Saturn Wireless/PWS and Spearhead Networks received their honors at the 2016 Solution Provider Champions Award Ceremony. The carrier recognized more than 85 solution providers in all. Each winner reflected the demand businesses have for strategic services, said Kevin Leonard, AT&T’s vice president of alternate channels.

Go here to read the full list of AT&T’s platinum, gold, silver and bronze winners.

VoIP and UCaaS provider Vonage recognized its top-performing channel partners at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas. Many of the honorees were master agents, including well-known firms such as Telarus, CarrierSales, Intelisys, PlanetOne and Sandler Partners.

Which partners came up big for Vonage in 2015? Find out here.

The Channel Partners Conference & Expo also was the forum for TelePacific to reward the top sellers of its managed services and business communications services, naming them to its President’s Club. They are Sandler Partners, Bridgepointe Technologies, Intelisys, PSI Networks, WTG, Telecom Brokers and Aligned Communications.

Click here to learn more about how these companies earned the recognition.

At its Partner Summit in San Diego, Cisco recognized top performers from around the world. Splunk got the nod as Top ISV Partner, and Dimension Data took home wins in three categories: Americas, Services and Architectural Excellence Partner of the Year. Presidio and CDW also took home multiple awards.

Click here for the full list of Cisco’s top partners.

Avaya named its Connect Partners of the Year for 2015 as part of its Executive Partner Forum in San Diego. The Connect Partner Program provides access to Avaya resources and innovations, focusing on the “transformation occurring in the industry and how channel partners can capitalize on the shift.“ The event celebrated Avaya Connect Channel partners who have successfully driven business outcomes for their customers. Congrats go out to Carousel Industries, Meridian IT, Integration Partners and more.

Avaya recognized about a dozen partners in all. The rest are here.

We recognized 25 partner companies for providing holistic solutions to customers who generated significant business value as a result. The companies were honored during a dinner ceremony at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas. This was the fourth year for the Channel Partners 360° Business Value Awards program.

Learn how you can win a CP 360°, simply by submitting your Business Success Story, here.

Polycom honored its top channel and vendor partners with 2015 Circle of Excellence Awards at TEAM Polycom 2016, its annual partner conference. The awards recognize partner companies that “excel at incorporating value-added solutions and services which create lasting value for customers” and “demonstrate the highest level of expertise” in implementing the company’s services. Microsoft, CDW and RingCentral were among the honorees.

Go here to see who else achieved Circle of Excellence status with Polycom.

VMware unveiled the winners of its annual Partner Innovation Awards, which recognize its various channel and vendor partners for achievements accomplished during the previous year. The awards were handed out during VMware’s inaugural Partner Leadership Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona. Honorees from around the world in 20 categories received awards for their excellent performance and notable achievements in 2015. Big names such as IBM, Ingram Micro and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise were among the top dogs.

Click here to see the full list of VMware’s top partners.

The annual awards spotlight the tech distributor’s top channel partners across the globe that have “exhibited a high level of innovation, advocacy, performance and sales success with Ingram Micro and the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace.“ InfinIT Consulting, Adapture and Aqueduct Technologies were three that took home hardware.

Ingram Micro honored a handful of other cloud partners. That list is here.

The managed-services arm of Time Warner Cable recognized “exemplary channel partners that deliver NaviSite services and solutions and serve as a model to the industry.” Kudos to Avant Communications, CDW, AnswerThink and Richardson Eyres for their accomplishments with NaviSite over the past year.

Read more about the accomplishments of these partners here.