By Editor
2014
Integrator East Africa Awards, Kenya Edition showcases Kenya’s IT marketing and channel talent
The 2014 Integrator East Africa Awards, Kenya Edition was held on the 5th of March in Nairobi at the spectacular Sankara hotel.
The event was a successful showcase of Kenya’s IT marketing and channel talent. Brands, top distributors and key resellers were at hand to receive and give recognition to their peers in the industry.
The second edition of the Awards introduced survey based selection of the winners in different categories. The surveys were done both online as well as offline. The voting saw strong participation from the channel and the winners were selected on the basis of maximum votes won.
The Award categories themselves were reorganized to reflect the shifts in the IT industry.
A few new categories were introduced to make it more encompassing in terms of enabling due recognition for as many deserving achievements across categories in the industry through the year.
Unlike the inaugural edition of the Awards, the recent Awards was only for the Kenya market. Further in-country edition of these Awards are scheduled for Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia later this year. The in-country Awards format has been introduced to make sure that stellar achievements in local markets are duly recognised.
The event provided the attendees ample opportunities o network and meet with peers, distributors and vendors. They were also introduced to the broad suite of Media and ancillary services provided to the MEA It industry by VAR Magazine, the Publishers of Integrator East Africa.
The final list, as voted by the channel was as follows:
| Networking Brand of the Year | D-Link |
| Security Software Brand of the Year | Kasperky Lab |
| Security Appliance Brand of the Year | Cyberoam |
| Printer Brand of the Year | HP |
| Business Laptop Brand of the Year | HP |
| Consumer Laptop Brand of the Year | Toshiba |
| Power Solutions Brand of the Year | APC by Schneider Electric |
| Tablet Brand of the Year | Samsung |
| Storage Hardware Brand of the Year | WD |
| Best New product | Asus |
| Best Channel Initiatives of the Year | Microsoft |
| Accessories Brand of the Year | Targus |
| Emerging Brand of the year | TP-LINK |
| Components Distributor of the Year | Niti |
| Best After Sales Service of the Year | Niti |
| Value Add Distributor of the Year | Redington |
| Champion Distributor of the Year | Mitsumi Distribution |
| Best Retailer of the Year | PC World |
| AV Integrator of the Year | AVC Systems |
| Security Integrator of the Year | Intracom Ltd. |
| Network Integrator of the Year | CRIMSON Technologies Kenya Ltd. |
| Storage Integrator of the Year | LANTech Africa Ltd. |
| Outstanding Entrepreneurship | Muneer Bharwani, CEO, Red Dot Distribution |
| Power Solutions Integrator of the year | Computer Technics Limited |