In total, Compass gave away 26 awards across three categories with the parameters primarily being contribution to IT, reputation and channel sales policy. The first category was meant for vendors, where Dell bagged the award for the Best Laptop Brand followed by HP beating Dell in the desktop segment. While D-Link bagged the Best Performer in Networking Products, it was Asus which outran Lenovo in the netbook segment. As usual, Intel was the pioneer in motherboard with Quick Heal emerging as the top anti-virus Brand. In the UPS space, Microtek outran Frontech with Samsung winning the Best Monitor award.

Also, in the top speaker brand, the award was jointly given to iBall and Frontech. However, it was HP's day in the awards. Across two segments in the printer space, inkjet and lasers, HP overran the rest of the competitors taking its total award count to three.

Among the top national distributors, Ingram Micro emerged as the top player. The association, this time also had a special award for the most responsive person of the year from among the vendors, and it was none other than Keshav Dhakad of Microsoft who bagged the award.

“At some point of time, there was a miscommunication which happened among the channels and Microsoft. Then, Dhakad played a crucial role in solving the stalemate that was created and successfully resolved the ongoing conflict between the channels and the vendor,” said Garodia.

In the software space, Sonolite Multimedia won the award for the Top Software Brand below Rs. 10,000 while Tally ERP 9 reigned supreme for the above Rs. 10,000 category. Similarly, A-DATA won the award for the Top Hardware Brand below Rs. 10,000 whereas Olive Laptop emerged on top in the above Rs. 10,000 category.

The second category was exclusively meant for the participants in the expo for the stall awards. In the small stalls category, Vikas Udyog emerged on top followed by Sancheeti. In the medium stalls category, Berlia emerged as the winner followed by Classic. However, it was in the big stalls category that the titans clashed. A-DATA bagged the award with its most impressive pavilion followed by Caltron.

In the third category, Compass chose to felicitate the stalwarts in the association for their past as well as present contribution to IT. This category was unique in the sense that under this category, there was no competition as the association selected its honorable members with recognition through awards.

B Hari, past Secretary of Compass was honored with Personality of the Year award while Dipti Poddar of Smartpower was honored with the title of Woman of the Year. However, what impressed the members was the Lifetime Achievement Awards given to VK Bhandari, Director, Supertron, for his outstanding contribution to the development of Compass.

Recollecting his memories of Compass in its early days, a nostalgic Bhandari said, “We strived hard to make Compass the biggest IT association of East India and we did succeed in our efforts. It makes us proud that today, Compass is in the national radar.”

Assuring his presence in Compass to this date, Bhandari concluded, “At this moment, I cannot take up any portfolio in the association. We have been keen on bringing in the young generation to lead the association and at this point the next generation is leading Compass. I am always there for giving any advice that will improve Compass and will continue to do so.”