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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallThe CRN Annual Report Card (ARC) measures how participating solution providers assess the IT vendors they work with—not how end users rate products or how products perform in laboratory tests. In 2026, CRN reported results across 23 technology categories, using 21 criteria grouped into product innovation, support, partnership, and managed and cloud services. The overall score is a useful summary of channel-partner feedback, but the subcategory and criterion scores better show which vendors fit a particular partner’s priorities.
What the CRN Annual Report Card measures
ARC is a survey of solution providers’ experiences with vendor partners. Its focus spans the products and the working relationship around them: product qualities, vendor support, channel programs, and the commercial and operational conditions for managed and cloud services. CRN describes the report as a way to assess how vendors meet channel partners’ needs. It is not a universal product-quality rating or an end-customer satisfaction survey.
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The 2026 edition covers 23 product technology categories and 21 criteria in four subcategories. CRN’s published criteria are:
Product innovation
- Product quality and reliability
- Features and functionality
- Technical innovation
- Compatibility and ease of integration
- Product marketability
- Services opportunity
Support
- Presales and post-sales support
- Training
- Quality of field management
- Marketing support
Partnership
- Solution-provider programs
- Communication
- Managing channel conflict
- Revenue and profit potential
- Ease of doing business
Managed and cloud services
- Consumption-based and subscription pricing
- Integration with services-management tools
- Cloud readiness of the channel program
- Field teaming and channel compensation alignment
- Profit margins and profit potential
The categories and criteria make ARC especially relevant to channel partners deciding how well a vendor supports their business. The same scores may be less informative for a customer who wants to compare technical performance for a specific workload.
#1 Best Overall
How the survey and scores work
The 2026 program is open to partners in North America and Canada. Participating vendors distribute survey access information to partners. A prospective respondent registers, completes a demographic profile, and sees the categories for which they are eligible before taking the survey through the ARC survey tool. The 2026 program page says CRN’s editorial team nominates companies; when a company declines, The Channel Company may choose to survey its ChannelBase about that company’s products or services.
CRN reports average scores for criteria categories and an overall score for each product technology category. Since the overall figure summarizes multiple dimensions, it should not be read as a score for one specific attribute such as reliability. CRN notes that vendors can lead individual criteria or subcategories without leading the overall result.
Rank #2
Scoring details should be tied to the edition in question. CRN’s 2025 winners article describes a weighted system in which each criterion’s score is influenced by how important the full respondent pool rated that criterion. On that basis, a more highly valued criterion has greater influence on the overall result. That description is specific to the 2025 edition; do not assume the same formula applies to another year unless that year’s methodology confirms it.
How to interpret ARC ratings
- Start with the technology category. Compare vendors within the same category. The 2026 report spans 23 categories, and a score from one category is not a cross-market ranking.
- Use the overall score as a summary. It combines partner judgments across product, support, partnership, and managed/cloud-services considerations; it does not isolate technical quality or any other single measure.
- Inspect subcategories and criteria. A vendor that leads overall may not lead the dimension most important to your business. Look at the specific scores for support, channel conflict, integration, cloud readiness, or another relevant criterion.
- Match the scores to your priorities. A partner prioritizing post-sales support or channel conflict management may reasonably reach a different conclusion from one focused on product integration or cloud-services economics.
- Be cautious with close scores. The reviewed public 2026 materials do not disclose respondent counts by category, response rates, confidence intervals, or statistical significance tests. A small difference therefore cannot be treated as proof that one vendor is meaningfully ahead, nor can the sample be assumed to represent every solution provider.
- Qualify comparisons across years. The Channel Company advertises year-over-year trend analysis for categories in which vendors participate annually. The reviewed materials do not establish an unchanged respondent mix or fully document methodological continuity, so treat apparent changes as indicative rather than definitive evidence of improvement or decline.
Why an overall leader may not be the right fit
CRN’s 2026 public-cloud results illustrate the distinction between an overall score and dimension-level leadership. AWS received an overall score of 82.5 and led average scores in product innovation and managed/cloud services, while Google Cloud led support and partnership. A partner whose main concern is support or the quality of the vendor relationship may therefore focus on different results than one prioritizing product innovation or managed-services considerations.
Rank #3
- Used Book in Good Condition
The example is specific to the public-cloud category and the 2026 report. It does not establish a cross-category ranking, a recommendation for every solution provider, or a measure of end-customer outcomes.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.A practical comparison checklist
When using ARC results to compare vendors, check:
- The report year and product technology category
- The overall score alongside product innovation, support, partnership, and managed/cloud-services scores
- The individual criterion most relevant to your business
- Whether a year-over-year comparison is supported by comparable participation and methodology information
- The limits of the public methodology, especially the absence of category-level sample sizes and uncertainty measures in the reviewed 2026 materials
Used this way, ARC can help reveal how participating channel partners view vendors and where their experiences differ. It is best treated as one input to a vendor assessment, interpreted within its category, year, and business context.
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