Tech Data Wins Cisco Worldwide Distributor Of The Year Award At Cisco Partner Summit

CLEARWATER, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tech Data Corporation (NASDAQ:TECD), a leading IT products distributor, today announced it is the recipient of two Cisco Partner Summit Awards: Worldwide Distributor of the Year and Services Innovator of the Year. Cisco presented the awards June 3 at its annual channel partner conference in Boston. The objective of the Distributor Awards is to recognize exemplary distribution partners whose behavior Cisco would like other distributors to model. All winners are selected by Cisco Worldwide Distribution services.

“These awards are the culmination of a lot of hard work and collaboration between Cisco and Tech Data throughout the Americas and Europe”

"I have the honor and privilege of recognizing Tech Data as Cisco’s Distributor of the Year and Services Innovator of the Year,” said Dave O’Callaghan, vice president of worldwide channels distribution at Cisco. “These awards recognize Tech Data’s performance and accomplishments as a Cisco distribution partner in 2008.”

“These awards are the culmination of a lot of hard work and collaboration between Cisco and Tech Data throughout the Americas and Europe,” said Tech Data Vice President, Cisco Solutions Group, Chuck Bartlett. “Together, we identified new opportunities to help reseller partners grow their Cisco businesses. We ensured our ability to execute on behalf of Cisco and our reseller customers was second to none, while introducing new enablement initiatives, dedicated resources, services and innovative e-business tools.”

Vice President of Tech Data’s European Enterprise division Azlan, Simon England adds, “Being named top worldwide distributor is a very significant vote of confidence from Cisco. We are driving a bold and focused strategy centred on supporting partners and helping accelerate the growth of their Cisco business. It's great to see our success and innovation being recognized on a global level, especially in addition to winning a record 10 country distributor of the year awards in Europe.”

Cisco Partner Summit Distributor Awards reflect a distribution partner’s performance worldwide. Categories include Small Distributor of the Year, Top Innovator, Partner Elevation, Market Acceleration, New Distributor of the Year, Cisco Services Innovation, and Worldwide Distributor of the Year.

A Strengthening Partnership

Throughout the last year, Tech Data expanded its support for Cisco resellers in the Americas and Europe.

In Europe, Tech Data’s Enterprise division, Azlan, launched several value-driven Cisco platforms, including its Cisco Services Renewals solution that tracks and automatically generates quotes for expiring services contracts, and Campaign Machine to deliver targeted technology, promotion and channel program information to more than 10,000 networking resellers across 15 countries. Building upon the success of recruiting 1,500 networking resellers for Azlan’s SMB University events last year, this enablement platform is expanding to include monthly online WebEx trainings this year.

In the U.S. Tech Data established the Cisco Solutions Group, opened the Cisco Solutions Center at Tech Data and introduced SMARTattach to automate and streamline Cisco SMARTnet service attach at the time of hardware purchase. The Cisco Solutions Group supports resellers deploying all Cisco solutions, including data center, unified communications, indoor and outdoor wireless, security and surveillance, and traditional switching and routing technology. It also offers Cisco resellers a broad array of services and support tailored to their specific needs.

In Canada, Tech Data enhanced its Advanced Technology Solution Centre — a joint initiative between Tech Data and Cisco — to include the latest Cisco networking and advanced technologies, including security, wireless, unified communications, digital signage, virtualization and RFID. Additionally, Tech Data has developed a white label Managed Services Program, Complete Connect, which enables resellers to offer a Cisco Unified Communications solution based on a monthly per-user cost.

In Latin America, Tech Data expanded its partnership with Cisco to distribute the vendor’s networking solutions in Brazil. Additionally, Tech Data’s Latin American operation now supports Cisco resellers with specialized, dedicated business units in each country it distributes Cisco solutions throughout the region.

To learn more about Tech Data’s support for Cisco resellers, visit www.techdata.com.

About Azlan

Azlan, the Enterprise Division of Tech Data Corporation, is a leading value-added distributor of networking, communications, midrange enterprise server, storage and software solutions in Europe. We enable fast, cost-effective pan-European distribution of products and solutions for market leaders such as Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), IBM (NYSE: IBM), HP (NYSE: HP), VMware (NYSE: VMW) and Oracle (NasdaqGS: ORCL). Azlan provides a variety of other value creating services including channel development, marketing and sales support, training and certification, and finance programs designed to assist vendor and reseller partners in developing their SME and mid market opportunities. www.azlan.com

Azlan continues to build on its 25 year history of excellence, now as part of Tech Data, which acquired Azlan in March 2003. Tech Data generated $24.1 billion in net sales for its fiscal year ended January 31, 2009.

About Tech Data

Tech Data Corporation (NASDAQ GS: TECD) is one of the world's largest distributors of technology products from leading IT hardware and software producers. Tech Data serves more than 125,000 IT solution providers in over 100 countries. Every day, these value-added resellers depend on Tech Data to cost-effectively support the technology needs of end users, including small and medium businesses (SMB), large enterprises and government agencies. Ranked 102nd on the FORTUNE 500(R), Tech Data generated $24.1 billion in net sales for its fiscal year ended January 31, 2009. To learn more, visit www.techdata.com.

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