The 2019 Reseller Choice Awards became a memorable night for women executives in the Canadian IT Channel. TechnoPlanet’s Women In Technology (WIT) program highlighted the careers of Natalie Benitah, Commercial Partners, Go-To-Market Leader at Microsoft Canada of Mississauga, Ont., Deidre Deacon, general manager of ViewSonic Canada and Joanne Wilson, the founder and VP of Trainer’s Advisory Network Ltd., of London, Ont.
Benitah, Deacon and Wilson have spent a collective 80 years in the Canadian IT industry and were celebrated on stage by all the other women in attendance at the Reseller Choice Awards.
While the Canadian IT industry still remains a male-dominated sector with a little more than 20 per cent women IT workers in the space, the WIT program strives to support and encourage women to stay in IT, while promoting high tech as a top career choice to young professionals in Canada.
Other notable moments from the event was Tech Data Canada’s 12-year reign as the Best Broad-based Distributor come to an end with Synnex Canada taking top spot.
While Microsoft Canada took home the most awards including the highly coveted Best Cloud Platform As-A-Service award, it was Datto who swept the Best Overall Vendor prize along with the Best Channel Program award.
Canadian companies did very well at the Resellers Choice Awards with Trois Rivieres, Que.-based ITCloud.ca capturing three awards: Best Cloud Distributor, Best Terms/Conditions (Distributor) and Best Product Support (Distributor).
Sherbrooke, Que.-based SherWeb won in the Best Infrastructure-as-a-Service category.
And, Calgary’s Passportal, now part of SolarWinds, finished first in the Best Password Management solution category.
The 13th annual Reseller Choice Awards delivered another packed house at the Eglinton Grand theatre in Toronto. Canadian channel executives vote on the top performers in 70 categories such as client computing, printing, security, cloud, networking, backup, as-a-service solutions, storage, CRM, customer service, data centre, help desk, gaming, Internet of Things, mobility and more. Channel partners throughout Canada nominate and vote in an interactive survey that reflects the current status of the market, while incorporating trends in the industry and the channel ecosystem.
