Neville James (NetApp)
NetApp has honoured its channel community across the Australian and New Zealand (A/NZ) region at a ceremony held at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
At the ceremony overlooking Sydney Harbour, A/NZ channel chief Neville James thanked the partners for their outstanding success during the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The market is demanding greater support and innovation on their digital transformation journey and our local partners are leading the way NetApp does business with the channel at a global scale,” he said.
“I congratulate all award recipients for their outstanding achievements. Their partnership and investment in NetApp to become specialists who help customers get the most value out of their data are testament to our joint success.”
Credit: NetApp During the evening, Katana1 won the Keystone Partner Innovation award for the use of the vendor's Keystone product, a flexible payment solution combined with storage-as-a-service.
Katana1 director Ross Ogilvie was inducted into NetApp’s Hall of Fame in recognition of his leadership and success in the wake of his co-founder Nick Russell’s untimely passing.
Another partner to win in both an organisation and individual category was Cirrus, which took home Platinum Partner of the Year while its senior account executive Simon Loftus was recognised for his sales success.
Start-up Tekoi received the new Partner of the Year award and Global Storage triumphed in the Gold category.
ISeek and Nexsys won in the service provider and cloud provider categories respectively as Telstra scored the gong for Global Systems Integrator of the Year.
Rounding up the organisations was Microsoft, which won in the Alliance Partner Champion category, and Cube was awarded Deal of the Year for its registration of Frank Arena.
On an individual level, Talor Hollaway of AdventOne scored the Technical Excellence award as Kytec’s Luis Cassanova won the Rising Star award.
Meridian IT’s Rob Simione was recognised as Data Visionary of the Year with Arrow’s Denise Ktsenos scoring the Marketing Excellence award.
“NetApp prides itself on long-term partnerships with the industry’s best reseller, application, infrastructure, consulting and cloud service providers, and this year’s award recipients are testament to that,” said Paul Crighton, managing director of NetApp Australia and New Zealand.
“Tonight’s winners are a reflection of how our local partnerships are leading the way for technology innovation globally, with one goal in mind: the success of our customers.
“NetApp technology proudly underpins many Australian organisations and some of the nation’s best technology projects across key sectors, empowering them to expand customer touchpoints, foster greater innovation and optimise operations by unleashing their data’s full potential.”
The winners in full:
Keystone Partner Innovation – Katana1
New Partner of the Year – Tekoi
Partner of the Year: Gold – Global Storage
Partner of the Year: Platinum – Cirrus
Service Provider of the Year – iSeek
Cloud Provider of the Year – Nexsys
Global Systems Integrator of the Year – Telstra
Alliance Partner Champion – Microsoft
Sales Excellence Award – Simon Loftus (Cirrus)
Technical Excellence Award – Talor Hollaway (AdventOne)
Rising Star – Luis Cassanova (Kytec)
Data Visionary of the Year – Rob Simione (Meridian IT)
Marketing Excellence – Denise Ktsenos (Arrow)
Hall of Fame Award – Ross Ogilvie (Katana1)
Deal of the Year – Frank Arena (Cube)
