MINNEAPOLIS — July 10, 2005 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the winners of the 2005 Microsoft® Partner of the Year Awards. The awards recognize Microsoft Registered, Certified and Gold Certified partners that delivered exemplary solutions for their customers during the past year. Award winners were chosen from a group of finalists from around the world. Winners were announced at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference 2005, the company’s premier annual event for industry partners, held this year in Minneapolis. In addition, Microsoft announced the winners of the Global Enterprise Services and Technology Partner of the Year, Global ISV Partner of the Year, Customer Experience of the Year, and Winning Customer of the Year awards.
More than 1,800 entries were submitted by partners worldwide; the award winners were selected from a group of finalists based on their dedicated use of Microsoft technologies to provide solutions for their customers’ needs. Finalists for each category were chosen from defined regions of the world: Asia; Canada; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); Latin America; the South Pacific; and the United States.
The Microsoft Partner of the Year Award winners were honored in the following categories, each of which represents a particular business practice area or partner business model. Winners were selected for both a Technology Innovation Award and a Sales and Marketing Award in each category: Advanced Infrastructure Solutions; Business Intelligence Solutions; Custom Development Solutions; Information Worker Solutions; Integrated E-Business Solutions; ISV/Software Solutions; Learning Solutions; Licensing Solutions — Delivery Solutions and Licensing Solutions — Software Asset Management; Microsoft Business Solutions; Mobility Solutions; Networking Infrastructure Solutions; OEM Hardware Solutions; Security Solutions; and Small Business Solutions. In addition to announcing the Partner of the Year Award winners, Microsoft honored the Specialization Excellence Award winners for each category, based on a partner’s demonstrated ability to deliver specific solutions within a specialized subset of Microsoft’s competency areas.
Microsoft also honored the winners of the Special Initiative Awards in the Winning Customer Award and Customer Experience Award categories. The Winning Customer Award recognizes the successful implementation of solutions on the Microsoft platform, resulting in the migration of customers to Microsoft technologies from competing technologies such as Novell Inc.’s NetWare, UNIX, Linux or others. Partners received this award by expertly developing customer solutions that exemplify the benefit of working on the Microsoft platform rather than those of other technology vendors.
The Customer Experience Award recognizes outstanding customer service that partners have provided to their customers by demonstrating their understanding of customers’ needs, and honors partners’ ingenuity in developing unique and relevant approaches to customer outreach.
In addition to the Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards, CMP Media LLC selected four partners to receive the CRN/Microsoft Best in Show Awards. These awards highlight innovative solutions developed by channel partners that serve as a source of inspiration for the entire channel. These solutions leverage a keen understanding of specific customer needs with emerging technologies to create new solutions that expand market opportunities for the channel as a whole.
CRN/Microsoft Best in Show Award Winners
CRN/Microsoft Best in Show, Small Business: Sapago Inc.
CRN/Microsoft Best in Show, Midmarket: Vis.align Inc.
CRN/Microsoft Best in Show, Enterprise: Best Crossmark
CRN/Microsoft Best in Show, Innovation: Internosis Inc.
Winning Customer Award Winners
Customer Experience Award Winners
Global ISV Partner of the Year Award Winner
Global Enterprise Services and Technology Partner of the Year Award Winner
Advanced Infrastructure Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
Advanced Infrastructure Solutions Specialization Award Winners
This award recognizes partner excellence in delivering solutions including Web-based applications, internal and external portals, solutions for managing large amounts of data and translating it into business intelligence, and more efficient communications both within the enterprise and from remote sites. These are the winners:
Fujitsu Siemens Computers GmbH
Hostbasket
Levi, Ray & Shoup Inc.
LogicaCMG Nederland BV
PointBridge Solutions LLC
Rackspace Managed Hosting
Scalability Experts Inc.
WebCentral
Business Intelligence Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
Custom Development Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
Information Worker Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
The Information Worker Specialization Award Winners
This award recognizes solution providers that help customers realize increased service revenues, new market opportunities and a renewed focus on high-value customer engagements via Microsoft Office System technology. These are the winners:
Atos Origin
Interlink Group Inc.
Navantis Inc.
STR SpA
Tenrox
Integrated E-Business Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
ISV/Software Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
The ISV/Software Solutions Specialization Award Winner
This award recognizes partners that develop packaged software solutions, based on Microsoft technologies, by creating robust software to meet specific customer needs and market demand. This is the winner:
Learning Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
Licensing Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
The Licensing Solutions — Software Asset Management Specialization Award Winners
This award recognizes partners that have developed new approaches to simplifying license acquisition, management and planning to make the process seamless, positive and effective for their customers. This is the winner:
Microsoft Business Solutions Solution Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
Mobility Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
Networking Infrastructure Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
OEM Hardware Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
The OEM Hardware Solutions Specialization Award Winners
This award recognizes partners that build and promote desktop or server hardware systems preinstalled with genuine Microsoft software and that provide key support services to end-user customers, by offering leading solutions configured according to customers’ needs and supported to ensure complete customer satisfaction. This is the winner:
Security Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
The Security Solutions Specialization Award Winners
This award recognizes partners that work in tandem with Microsoft to develop superior approaches to continually updating and improving Windows® platform security by providing exceptional security infrastructure and management to customers. These are the winners:
CCD/Vynamics Corp.
Datalog Software AG
Processor Informatica SA
Small Business Solutions Award Winners
Sales and Marketing Award
Technical Innovation Award
About Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference
Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference provides Microsoft’s partner community with access to key marketing and business strategies, leadership, and information regarding specific customer solutions designed to help partners succeed in the marketplace. Along with informative learning opportunities covering sales, marketing, services and technology, the Worldwide Partner Conference is an ideal setting for partners to garner valuable knowledge from their peers and from Microsoft. More information can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/partner/events/wwpartnerconference.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
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