Time to Recognize and Reward

The financial year 2004-05 is turning out to be a momentous one for your
favorite channel publication. We have had several occasions to celebrate and
also record changes in the last ten months or so.

At the beginning of the fiscal in April, we turned around DQCI to address the
needs of the solution providers of the country. Though comparatively smaller in
number as yet, still the fact remains that this community is growing quite fast.
Already, according to our estimates, solution providers now constitute close to
30% of the entire channel community of the country.

However, the information needs of this extremely important community was not
getting fulfilled. So, we reoriented DQCI and took it upon ourselves to bring in
content relevant and of use to solutions providers.

When we embarked on this new odyssey in April last, there were a lot of
skeptics who thought that we were being foolish by dedicating a complete
publication for a small community. But we proved everybody wrong and so much so
that now the very same people are trying to imitate us. We stand vindicated and
at the same time happy that we are on the right path. And now we are doing
another first, which our friends (competitors) will certainly follow later-though
they will dismiss this new step as of now.

Unlike some other awards, which give too much importance to the topline and
box pushing, DQCI will single out partners who have consistently performed well
in the past and have added value to their business. Instead of focussing on
revenue generated, we will appreciate the success the partners have achieved due
to innovative business and ethical practices.

To achieve that, we evolved a robust methodology and selection process. Then
we constituted a very distinguished panel from the industry to sit and
deliberate on the parameters. And thanks to the excellent efforts put in by this
panel-consisting of Biju Bruno of APC, Chandan Sonowal of IBM, Sanjeev Keskar
of AMD and Sanjiv Mehrotra of Ingram Micro-we were able to come up with names
of the awardees, all of whom are very well-respected in their business sphere.

Without doubt, DQCI has been a trendsetter in this fiscal. There have been
several firsts to our credit. And as the New Year unfolds, we will strive to
maintain our leadership position by taking many more such unique initiatives. In
the meantime, let's congratulate the winners of India's first and only
awards for solution providers. They truly deserve it.

Asim Raina