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NetApp honours top A/NZ partners

Australian and New Zealand partners recognised for their dedication
Paul Thomas (Diversus Group), Igor Bozic (Diversus Group), Chris Starsmeare (Diversus Group), Glenn McPherson (NetApp), Matthew Agoni (Diversus Group), Reuben Mei-Edwards (Diversus Group)

Paul Thomas (Diversus Group), Igor Bozic (Diversus Group), Chris Starsmeare (Diversus Group), Glenn McPherson (NetApp), Matthew Agoni (Diversus Group), Reuben Mei-Edwards (Diversus Group)

Storage and data management vendor, NetApp, has announced its top local partners in its annual Australia and New Zealand partner Awards.

Seven partners across 12 categories were recognised in the third edition of the local award.

For the second consecutive year, Diversus Group, was recognised as the Reseller of the Year for Gold partners.

Sydney-based managed service provider, Outcomex, took the Converged Infrastructure Excellence award, while Leidos took home the Global Systems Integrator of the Year.

VMtech was recognised for Marketing Excellence and Dimension Data as the Reseller of the Year for Platinum or Star partners.

The Cloud Provider of the Year award was shared between Christchurch-headquartered, Computer Concepts Limited and Telstra, this category was introduced in 2017 replacing the Service provider category.

The New Partner of the Year was handed to Oreta, the services provider specialised in cloud, back-up and disaster recovery, security and networking.

“This year we celebrated 25 years as a company and the calibre of entries in the Partner Awards speaks to the growth of the business and the dedication to the hybrid cloud ecosystem by the channel,” NetApp A/NZ managing director, Glenn McPherson, said. “The award winners have been recognised for their dedication to unleashing the potential of data, discovering new opportunities and disrupting industry standards by maximising the power of data.”

Martin Cooper (NetApp), Malcolm Fraser (Computer Concepts Limited), James Kennedy-Moffat (NetApp)
Martin Cooper (NetApp), Malcolm Fraser (Computer Concepts Limited), James Kennedy-Moffat (NetApp)

Every year NetApp also recognises individuals for their technical excellence as well as excellence in sales and marketing .

This year a new category was introduced, the Data Visionary of the Year, in order to recognise who demonstrated outstanding thought leadership, solution design, evangelism of the data fabric and has genuinely driven a new and innovative initiative around the use of data.

Telstra cloud product manager, Daniel Peluso, was named the 2017 NetApp Data Visionary of the Year.

Dimension Data senior solution architect, Rob Gee, was named the Allaince Partner Champion and Arrow ECS business manager, Rhys George, took the Sales Excellence award.

Diversus Group national consulting director, Matthew Agoni, received the Technical Excellence award while the company’s CEO, Chris Starsmeare, was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

“Our partners are integral to the NetApp business and play a key role in enabling customers to become data visionaries in their own right,” NetApp APAC senior vice president, Rick Scurfield, said. “The calibre of this year’s award finalists and winners showcase the dedication to digital transformation and innovation amongst our channel community.”