Three cheers for channels!

The Sixth DQ Week Awards Nite at Park Royal Intercontinental was a swell.
Five hundred leading IT distributors and channel partners from NCR and 28 other
cities from North India right from Kanpur to Srinagar were all there in
attendance waiting to hear who won what with the names of probables doing the
rounds along with pleasantries. Here are some highlights from the gala nite:

l The time for domestic market growth is here and now, emphasized Pradeep
Gupta, MD, CyberMedia India and publisher of The DQ Week in his opening remarks
while congratulating the channel partners on their role in realizing the
domestic market growth dream. "The kind of activity and growth the domestic
sector has witnessed has been made possible because of the vibrant channel
community and I am sure exciting times are ahead for all of us," he said.

l Chief Secretary of the Government of Delhi S Regunathan honoured the event
with his presence and in his keynote address cautioned the audience to guard
against piracy. "Piracy continues to be the biggest hurdle in the growth of
the country's IT industry," he said calling upon channel partners to help
fight the menace. "A country like India cannot afford to encourage piracy.
We must come forward to reduce piracy levels in the Indian hardware and software
segment. Channels being an integral part of this community should come forward
by not selling pirated software or hardware," he said making his point.

l Samsung India VP Vivek Prakash's brief talk on the excise duty generated
so much response that it went well beyond the allotted time. He of course could
not take all the questions over clarifications on the exemption from excise duty
and promised to take them offline. However, some of the resellers were pretty
much disappointed not to find him around long enough to interact with.

Finally, the Awards function started honouring the best channel partners from
cities across North India, covering nine states.

In Jammu and Kashmir, Baggage Computers from Srinagar and AGM Sales
Corporation from Jammu got the award. In Himachal Pradesh, Ace Infotech from
Shimla got the award.

In Uttar Pradesh, while MKG Infotech was given the best channel partner award
from Agra, Stek Systems bagged the award for Allahabad. In Meerut, Foretek
Systems made a hat trick by winning the award consecutively for the third year
in succession.

Other award winners included Commexcell Technologies from Kanpur, Sigma IT
Super Store from Lucknow, Jwala Distributors from Varanasi, Hari Computer Center
from Jhansi and Jalan Distributors from Gorakhpur.

In Uttaranchal, its capital Dehradun was covered and the award went to JP
Sales Corporation.

In Rajasthan, Frontine Computers from Jodhpur bagged the channel partner
award. Tayal Software from Udaipur and Vishnu Computer Land from Jaipur were
also awarded as best channel partners.

From Chattisgrah, State Merlin Multitech from Raipur bagged the award. In
Haryana Computer Touch from Ambala won the award, while Computer City from
Panipat also bagged the award.

In Punjab, Super Dot Computers from Jalandhar got the best channel partner
award while SK Trading from Ludhiana, Forte System from Patiala and NV computers
from Amritsar were also awarded.

In Chandigarh, Astral Computer System was awarded as the best channel
partner. In MP, Coral Business System won the award from Bhopal, while Pioneer
Sales Service from Jabalpur also won the award. Marquis Computer from Gwalior
was also awarded and Business Automation & Veltronics India were
joint-winners from Indore.

In the NCR, Aadhar Computech from Ghaziabad and Jain Peri-pherals from
Gurgaon got the award.

The DQ Week awards for Delhi had four categories-retailer, systems
integrator, reseller and sub-distributor. The best retailer award went to SD
Computers, while Trifin Technologies bagged the runner up award. PC Solutions
was the winner under the system integration category, while the runner up was
Team Computers.

The best reseller award was given to Baba Computers, while the runner up
award went to Frontline Information Systems. Comnet Vision bagged the best sub
distributor award, while the runner up award went to Park Electronik.

Prasanto K Roy, Chief Editor, The DQ Week, delivered the vote of thanks.

CyberMedia News

New Delhi