UPDATE: Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions To Send Select HP Partners on Reward Trip Modeled After 'The Amazing Race'

ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions (ECS) today announced the winners of the first sales competition of its kind for its HP reseller partners who will be rewarded with a multi-destination trip similar to the television program, "The Amazing Race."

Systems Technology Associates (STA); Agilysys, Inc.; Nth Generation Computing, Inc.; Compucom; and OnX Enterprise Solutions, Inc., participated in this mid-market penetration contest and secured purchases from the most end users, and will now get to compete in the Arrow ECS Amazing Race.

"Arrow ECS thanks all of our HP partners for their overwhelming interest in this unique competition and we congratulate the winners for their outstanding success," said Kevin Gilroy, president, Arrow ECS. "We look forward to seeing the winners at the race."

The Arrow ECS Amazing Race program was launched in May 2007. Arrow ECS' HP partners were challenged to generate the most individual sales from May 1 through July 31. STA won in the business critical servers category; Agilysys in the industry standard server category; Nth Generation in the storage category; Compucom in the software category; and OnX won in the services category, which was based on highest services content ratio.

These winning partners will be sent on an all-expenses-paid, four-day reward trip, held September 25-28, beginning at an undisclosed location in the United States. Each selected partner will send two representatives, who will be placed with their Arrow ECS field account manager, to participate as one of five teams in a race similar to "The Amazing Race."

Teams will face physical and mental challenges each day as they race to and within multiple key destination cities throughout the United States based on clues provided by Arrow ECS along the route. Contestants will receive a backpack and survival kit, and each team member will log their challenges and experiences throughout the race. The teams' progress will be chronicled on http://www.thearrowrace.com/.

Arrow ECS and HP senior sales and corporate executives will greet the teams when they reach the final destination. The contestants who reach the final destination the fastest will be named the winner and will receive a special undisclosed reward.

"The channel is key to reaching the enterprise mid-market," said Frank Rauch, vice president, TSG Sales, Solution Partner Organization - Americas, HP. "This innovative sales contest rewards channel partners for selling HP enterprise solutions to the greatest number of customers. I'm looking forward to personally congratulating the winning team."

"We are delighted that we will be able to participate in the Arrow ECS Amazing Race," said Richard Baldwin, chief executive officer of Nth Generation. "There is a lot of excitement in our office with anticipation of who we'll send on the trip. About 20 percent of our staff volunteered to participate. The entire team will vote to choose the actual participants. This was a great incentive program for our entire team."

The Arrow ECS Amazing Race was launched to help expand its HP market share by incenting partners to sell to more end users versus achieving the most sales overall, which is the traditional criteria for sales competitions.

"Arrow ECS is committed to both helping our suppliers reach key markets and helping our reseller partners grow their business, and this program encourages partners to pursue small- and medium-sized customers," said Kevin Gilroy, president, Arrow ECS. "We deliver on that commitment by giving our partners the tools they need to succeed and providing reward programs, such as the Arrow ECS Amazing Race. Imaginative rewards like this are often able to inspire sales teams to move to higher levels of performance."

ABOUT ARROW ENTERPRISE COMPUTING SOLUTIONS

Arrow ECS, a business unit of Arrow Electronics, Inc. , provides enterprise and midrange computing products, services and solutions to value-added resellers, system integrators, and independent software vendors. Based in Englewood, Colo., Arrow ECS connects its customers to the world's foremost technology suppliers, including HP, IBM, Sun Microsystems, EMC, NetApp, Hitachi Data Systems, and other leading storage networking, software, and security suppliers. Arrow ECS reported $2.5 billion in worldwide computer products sales in 2006. Visit us at http://www.arrowecs.com/.