NEW ORLEANS – Richmond Hill, Ont.-based FlexITy Solutions took home global and North American honours at Cisco Partner Summit 2011 here Tuesday night.
The Canadian solution provider earned the networking giant’s Global Collaboration Partner award, as well as earning Vertical Partner of the Year for North America. FlexITy was joined by fellow Canadian partners Telus (managed services) and Bell Canada (Canada services) in the North American theatre awards.
“It’s really exciting to have a Canadian partner win a global award, especially since it was for a partner-to-partner collaboration,” Donna Wittmann, vice president of Cisco Canada’s partner organization, told ChannelBuzz.ca.
FlexITy took home the global award for a “smart hospital” job at Sault Area Hospital in Sault St. Marie, Ont, done in concert with building contractor (and Cisco partner) EllisDon. The solution involved building a new all-digital, end-to-end Cisco facility for the hospital, including unified communications, wireless networking and using Cisco IP phones as terminals for patient record access.
“It really resonated at a global level and highlighted a non-traditional Cisco partner [EllisDon] working with a traditional partner [FlexITy],” she said.
The first day of Partner Summit also saw 11 partners – seven sector awards that were partner-nominated and four for partner of the year by region and growth. Among the winners, Thornhill, Ont.-based OnX Enterprise Solutions took home a pair of awards, for Canadian Managed Cloud Partner of the Year and Borderless Network Partner of the Year.
Softchoice took home Growth Partner of the Year, having grown its Cisco business 252 per cent year-over-year, Wittmann said.
The winners were announced at Cisco Canada’s party at The Republic here Tuesday night. Here’s a full rundown of the winners from last night:
- Collaboration Partner of the Year: Bell Canada
- Business Video Partner of the Year: CBCI
- Vertical Solutions Partner of the Year: Compucom
- Solution Innovation Partner of the Year: Compugen
- Central Canada Partner of the Year: IBM Canada
- Data Centre/Virtualization Partner of the Year: Long View Systems
- Borderless Network Partner of the Year: OnX Enterprise Solutions
- Managed Cloud Partner of the Year: OnX Enterprise Solutions
- Growth Partner of the Year: Softchoice
- Western Canada Partner of the Year: Telus
- Eastern Canada Partner of the Year: Unis Lumin
Wittmann said the appearance of new names – most notably OnX and Softchoice – “demonstrates the breadth and depth of the partners we have in Canada.”
Congratulation to all of this year’s award winners!
