Dicker Data has been named Distributor of the Year at WatchGuard's APAC partner awards, while Systemnet was awarded both Partner of the Year and Top Gold Partner of the Year.
The awards were announced at WatchGuard's annual partner conference, which this year took place in Queenstown, New Zealand. The awards recognise the company's best performing Australian and New Zealand channel partners that meet specific certification and partner programme requirements, in addition to their revenue performance.
Dicker Data took home Distributor of the Year based on its performance while Systemnet was awarded both Partner of the Year and Top Gold Partner of the Year, based on the company's net financial contribution through sales of WatchGuard solutions in the last financial year and participation in the WatchGuardONE channel programme.
“The awards are testament to our partners' success in servicing the requirements of corporate and public sector demand for the feature rich WatchGuard security solutions,” explains David Higgins, ANZ regional director, WatchGuard Technologies.
“At the same time, it gives us great pleasure to recognise and reward the commitment and support of all our partners who played a major role in the company's sales growth and performance across the region in 2015,” he says.
This year's awards introduced The Founding Partner Award, in an effort to recognise WatchGuard ANZ's longest standing partner that is still achieving strong results in 2016. Melbourne-based firm Solutions Plus Australia was recognized for this achievement.
Sydney-based AKCS won Top Deal of 2015 Award based on its work with the New South Wales Cancer Council, while the New Partner of the Year went to Brisbane-headquartered specialist IT supplier, Shiloh Marketing Services.
WatchGuard also announced several partners who received WatchGuard Gold Plaques to recognise their commitment to the WatchGuardONE channel programne.
More than 40 WatchGuard partners attended the annual event, which included seminar sessions aimed at both technical and business audiences as well as networking dinners and activities.
The event was co-sponsored by WatchGuard's ANZ Distributors Dicker Data and Exclusive Networks (Australia) and exeed (New Zealand).