It's an honor to even be nominated!
Congratulations to several Avnet VARs that were nominated for Sun's 2009 GEH Partners of the Year! During this challenging economy, these VARs proved that they could be creative, flexible and persistent throughout their sales process while demonstrating the added value of Sun and its offerings to a variety of end users. Let's give these nominees a round of applause!
Nominated Education Partners of the Year
1. Northeast Region: Continental Resources
2. Southeast Region: Systems Alliance
3. Central Region: Laurus Technologies
4. West Region: Petrosys
Nominated State and Local Government Partners of the Year
1. Northeast Region: Continental Resources
2. Southeast Region: GCA (Quasius)
3. Central Region: Great Northern Consulting Services
4. West Region: GovStor
And the winners are...
Education Partner of the Year
Sun's partnership with Systems Alliance (Sparks, MD) has grown dramatically in the past three years. The partnership has gone from engaging at one account, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, to expanding into several Sun GEH territories and regions. Systems Alliance has been strategic and selective with their hiring and expansion, with many of the new hires bringing skill sets and Sun expertise that will help them grow the GEH business across the southeast. They've recruited top talent from a variety of Sun competitors, and they've increased their technical talent to develop Education and Healthcare solution sets around virtualization, secure global desktop, high-performance computing, storage (archiving) and Software as a Service (SaaS).
Most importantly, Systems Alliance has shown significant revenue growth (approximately 20 percent year-on-year) in Sun's FY09, in an otherwise very challenging environment for growth. It’s also worth noting that Systems Alliance is a true "Sun Only" partner, carrying no competitive products in any of the product family areas represented by Sun.
Please congratulate Systems Alliance as Sun's FY09 Education Partner of the Year!
State and Local Government Partner of the Year
A longtime Sun and GEH partner, Continental Resources (Bedford, Mass) finished as the top revenue producer in state and local government sales in the Northeast GEH Region. In addition, Continental Resources has made significant investments in GEH this year. From a state and local government perspective, they stepped up to the plate when Sun asked them to help with sales resources in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They grew business in these two states by 92 percent by investing in sales resources, technical resources, evaluation and loaner systems, focused marketing resources and strategic planning with the Sun team.
One item that sets Continental Resources apart from other partners is its strong marketing team. Continental Resources made a significant investment in marketing to prospective GEH customers the Northeast. They ran a number of campaigns, taking the Sun GEH messaging and focusing it throughout the Northeast, including a campaign featuring a toll road transponder concept focused on New Jersey state agencies.
Continental Resources continues to invest in pre-sales technical resources and this past year has invested significantly in a traveling Sun Ray demo, bringing this to many government agencies in the Northeast.
Continental Resources continues to represent the model of how Sun expects its partners to work with Sun. Their commitment and dedication to GEH continues to be exemplary. Please join Sun in congratulating Continental Resources as Sun's 2009 State and Local Government Partner of the Year!
