INDUSTRY

NEW ORLEANS -- Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced the names of the winners of the Microsoft(R) Certified Partner Awards and Microsoft Global Partner Recognition Awards. The awards recognize Microsoft Certified Partners and Microsoft Certified Business Solutions Partners that delivered exemplary solutions for their customers during the past year. Award winners were chosen from a group of five finalists, one from each region worldwide, in 16 categories. Winners were announced at the Worldwide Partner Conference 2003, Microsoft's premier annual event for industry partners, held Oct. 9-11 in New Orleans. The Certified Partner Awards recognize Microsoft Certified Partners that have demonstrated excellence in delivering customer solutions with Microsoft technologies. Winners were chosen from finalists based on their innovative use of Microsoft's latest technologies to deliver exemplary solutions for their customers. The Microsoft Certified Partner Program helps partners build successful Microsoft technology-based businesses by offering a variety of resources including training, technical support, products and peer-networking opportunities. This year's Certified Partner Award winners are as follows: -- Business Intelligence Solution of the Year: Intellinet Corp. Currently celebrating its 10th year in business, Intellinet is the most highly certified Microsoft consulting firm in the southeastern United States, with Gold Partner certifications in Business Intelligence, e-Commerce Solutions, Enterprise Systems and Security Solutions. The company's NetMon solution uses nearly every feature of Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2003 Enterprise Edition to merge information about network health, usage, problems and more, delivering standard and customized reports via the Web and alerting users to system exceptions. -- Collaborative Solution of the Year: Navantis Inc. As a leader in IT strategy, development and delivery of high-impact solutions, Navantis is committed to delivering high-quality technology and services. Working with Microsoft Consulting Services and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), Navantis created a powerful digital library solution using the Microsoft .NET Framework. The solution provides the visually impaired with access to news, online magazines, literature and entertainment. It is scaling up to 120,000 books this year, encompassing a terabyte of data, and has the potential to reach 300 million users worldwide. -- CRM Reseller of the Year: Equarius. Equarius is a Gold Certified Partner with deep experience in energy, high-tech manufacturing, software, financial services and professional sports entities. The company created a solution that provides a single customer view across selling, marketing and customer service for the Seattle Sonics and Seattle Storm professional basketball teams, integrating legacy systems with Microsoft Business Solutions CRM functionality and implementing processes and tools for maintaining customer data, cross-selling and upselling in support of sponsorships, media, and luxury-suite and season-ticket sales. -- CRM Solution Developer of the Year: Sonoma Partners LLC. Chicago-based Sonoma Partners helps clients build, analyze and grow their sales and customer databases. Sonoma created a solution for Equity Residential, a real estate sales and leasing company with more than 1,000 properties across 35 states, to help it automate and track business processes surrounding the sale of condos. The system leverages the Lead, Contact and Opportunity features of Microsoft CRM, and allows Equity Residential to track detailed information about each potential sale. Purchasers can also specify desired unit upgrades. Once the details are entered in the Microsoft CRM system, Equity Residential can quickly generate related documents such as sales contracts, closing worksheets, tax letters, warranties and deeds. -- Data Management Solution of the Year: Global Care Solutions Ltd. Global Care Solutions (GCS) provides integrated healthcare software based solely on Microsoft technology. The Amalga Picture Archiving and Communication solution supports archiving of radiology images (X-ray, CT scam, MRI, ultrasound, cardiac and nuclear) including scanned documents. Designed solely for Microsoft Windows(R) and SQL Server 2000, Amalga is the only single-vendor solution of its type. It operates in every UNICODE language supported by Windows, and is capable of managing extremely large volumes of data: a typical 500-bed hospital facility can generate two terabytes of picture data per year, which can never be deleted. -- ERP Reseller of the Year: Professional Advantage Pty Ltd. With more than 600 clients, Professional Advantage is the largest provider of a range of leading global financial management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to midsize companies in Australia. Professional Advantage created a solution for Club Assist, the world's leading motoring club service provider with operations in five countries. Using Microsoft Business Solutions-Great Plains(R), OLAP and wireless technology, the company provided Club Assist's large mobile work force with direct access to all back-end information and processes, enabling mobile workers to generate sales orders, purchase orders, invoices and other financial information and process them directly into the system in real time. -- ERP Solution Developer of the Year: Campus Management Corp. Campus Management Corp. (CMC) develops Microsoft-based ERP and student information systems for colleges and universities. CMC focuses primarily on for-profit schools and has a 40 percent market share, and also sells to not-for-profit colleges. The company's Campus 2000 solution manages workflow in the higher-education setting. Functionality spans admissions, financial aid, student accounts (with an interface to Microsoft Great Plains accounting solutions), academic operations and progress, and student services including career placement and housing. -- Infrastructure Solution of the Year: INOSOFT AG. Founded in 1993, INOSOFT AG is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner that offers consulting services and software development with a strong focus on client management. INOSOFT delivered a standard desktop solution that provided a uniform desktop based on Windows 2000 and Windows XP for 45,000 workstations worldwide, encompassing 32 languages. It was a critical solution for a globally operated company, and INOSOFT's desktop rollout was accomplished in a matter of days at each site -- with no downtime for users. All employees worldwide now use a uniform environment with language settings and business-specific applications tailored to their needs. -- Integration Solution of the Year: RDA Corp. RDA is an IT services firm with significant development experience in financial services, insurance, healthcare, retail, lending and several other industries. RDA developed a solution for financial services company Rydex Funds that enables the company to rapidly deploy new interfaces for its Transfer Agency system to allow the system to interface with many disparate formats in the exchange of data. Using Microsoft BizTalk(R) Server 2002, SQL Server 2000, Exchange 2000 Server and Extensible Markup Language (XML), the solution provides a consistent and simplified way to implement each interface quickly, with a strong focus on growth and scalability. -- Internet Business Solution of the Year: Sapient Corp. Sapient is a leading IT services firm that plans, designs, implements and manages information technology projects to improve business performance for Global 2000 clients. The company developed a large-scale, Web-based electronic publishing solution to help the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provide free, searchable access to the institute's course materials for educators, students and individual learners around the world. In the process, Sapient created an efficient, standards-based model that can be emulated for other universities seeking to publish their own course materials. -- Microsoft CTEC Solution of the Year: QA PLC. With more than 20 years of experience, QA is a leading provider of IT training through nine CTEC centers across the United Kingdom and Ireland that offer courses developed by QA's experts, working with Microsoft product teams. The company developed a cost-effective solution built upon Microsoft's newly released e-learning material for MCSA certification. QA took that content and built a blended learning solution for Vodafone UK that allows Vodafone to save time and effort by flexibly tailoring content delivery to individual and organizational training needs. -- Security Solution of the Year: Rainfinity. Network solutions provider Rainfinity has more than 500 direct customers and hundreds more through original equipment manufacturer relationships. Typical customers are medium-sized and large enterprises that require secure and reliable Internet connectivity. RainConnect for Microsoft ISA Server clusters the Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA Server) firewall and virtual private networking to intelligently balance the loads of Internet and VPN traffic, providing continuous Internet access, maximizing performance, protecting networks with automatic failover of traffic, and avoiding bottlenecks. -- Small-Business Solution of the Year: IdealSoft Pte Ltd. IdealSoft assists clients in planning, developing and deploying strategic business applications and IT solutions. Using Microsoft Great Plains to handle the accounting functions, IdealSoft developed a complete business-process automation solution for chemical provider Uniseal, covering accounting, marketing, inventory and project management. The solution includes a wireless project-tracking system and wireless sales-force automation system to be integrated with back-end systems to automate the sales process. -- Software Asset Management Advocate of the Year: ISA Technologies Sdn Bhd. ISA Technologies (ISAT) is a specialist information technology company with core competencies in the areas of advanced high speed networks, e-business systems, software engineering, and related management and security technologies. The company's SAMLite software- asset management solution provides large corporations with an alternative to tedious physical auditing methods or expensive and complex software auditing. The solution provides a set of utilities that allows administrators to detect machines and the software installed on them, record software movement, automate the software request and approval cycle, and calculate the cost of a company's investment in installed software. -- .NET Application of the Year: DapaSoft Inc. DapaSoft Inc. is a software development and IT consulting firm that delivers custom software solutions to clients in a variety of business sectors, including healthcare, financial services, insurance, steel manufacturing and government. Responding to the city of Ontario's SARS crisis over the past year, DapaSoft developed a solution to help the city's health organizations screen all patient transfer requests, identify patients with SARS and thereby prevent spreading of the disease among healthcare facilities. The solution allows specialized physicians to access the system through Pocket PCs, allowing them to identify and follow up on transfer requests that pose SARS concerns. -- .NET Packaged Application of the Year: Brookstone Technologies Pty Ltd. Brookstone offers products and services to facilitate the conduct of business electronically in the areas of Internet, mobile and wireless development, and eBusiness systems. The .NET-based Brookstone Virtual Office (BVO) utilizes the workflow and mobile/wireless capabilities of Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003, together with the capabilities of SharePoint(TM) Portal Server, to provide contact management, marketing and events management, documents and activities management, customer care and help desk functionality, project and timesheets management, and other functionality, with browser and wireless access to the complete workflow. -- Global ISV Partner of the Year: Citrix Systems Inc. Citrix is the global leader in access infrastructure solutions for businesses, government agencies and educational institutions. Citrix, together with Microsoft, provides enterprise customers with simple, secure access to .NET-connected applications, services and content from virtually any client device across any network connection. Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server supports any custom or commercially packaged Windows application. Certified to run on Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server(TM) 2003, the combined solution creates an access infrastructure that reduces computing costs and increases the utility of information systems. Global Services Partner of the Year Award The Microsoft Global Services Partner of the Year Special Recognition Award is given to the global services partner that has demonstrated leadership in developing and delivering enterprise-class solutions based on the Microsoft platform. This year, Microsoft's worldwide partner management leaders selected two world-class partners, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGE&Y) and HP, as co- winners. A global alliance partner since 1997, CGE&Y has invested in developing integrated solutions that take advantage of the latest Microsoft enterprise technologies, including Windows Server 2003, the Microsoft Office System, BizTalk Server, SQL Server and Visual Studio(R) .NET developer tools. CGE&Y has developed a wide range of reusable components, frameworks and solutions that support IT infrastructure, application infrastructure and information worker productivity. HP has been a partner for more than 20 years and has excelled in delivering a broad portfolio of .NET solutions worldwide. In the past year HP has focused on driving customer adoption of the Microsoft .NET Solutions Platform through a rich portfolio of business solutions and investments to grow its global services capacity and capabilities. HP has built and deployed hundreds of end-to-end solutions that allow its enterprise customers around the world to reach new levels of business agility, enabling an adaptive enterprise. HP is a market leader in developing and deploying infrastructure and vertical industries' business solutions for the Windows platform, enabling clients to achieve operational efficiency and overall greater return on IT investments. Hosting Solutions Service Provider of the Year Award The Microsoft Communications Sector Hosting Solutions Service Provider of the Year Award is a special recognition award given to service providers that are able to scale up to deliver a consistent, high-quality hosted service built on Microsoft technology to the large numbers of small and medium-sized businesses and departments of large corporations looking for applications outsourcing. This year, Microsoft recognizes Rackspace Managed Hosting as the Hosting Solutions Special Recognition Award winner for its collaboration in helping reduce its customers' operational costs significantly and drive new revenue streams. Hosting provider Rackspace has made a name for itself through its policy of providing "Fanatical Support" to customers. Rackspace's Intensive Hosting division, made the most of the Automated Deployment Services (ADS) feature of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition to build rack-ready servers running the Windows Server 2003 operating system in as little as 19 minutes -- 68 percent faster than it built Microsoft Windows 2000 Server-based systems without ADS. It has also used Microsoft's security offering to reduce its patch deployment times by 85 percent. CRN Best in Show Award CRN Magazine carefully considered all of the honorees and chose two CRN Best in Show winners from the Certified Partner Award winners. The Best in Show awards, an attendee favorite, were presented by editor Heather Clancy on stage at the Worldwide Partner Conference. The awards honor solution providers with innovative approaches to working with vendors and customers. Awards were given in two categories: Small Business and Enterprise. The award recipients are IdealSoft in the Small Business category and DapaSoft in the Enterprise category. Microsoft Business Solutions Honors Success and Innovation With Partner Awards In a ceremony Oct. 8 hosted by Doug Burgum, senior vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions, and his senior leadership team, Microsoft Business Solutions honored the following industry partners in recognition of overall success, customer satisfaction and a high degree of innovation with Microsoft Business Solutions technologies and services: -- Partner's Choice Developer Award: Professional Advantage. Based in North Sydney, Australia and Fargo, N.D., this independent software vendor received nearly two-thirds of all nominations submitted. One nominator raved, "We cannot say enough good things about Professional Advantage and their excellent products and support services. They are always there to provide whatever assistance we need to demonstrate products and how they will make a difference to our customers." Another added, "Consistently, year after year, Professional Advantage solutions help us close business. When we present our solutions, theirs is the glue that ties it together." -- Outstanding Partner Latin America: FillGap Business Systems. Based in Mexico City, FillGap Business Systems has created and been successful with vertical solutions in the retail and consumer products industries, using third-party point-of-sale solutions it has fully integrated into Microsoft Solomon. It is also strong in the area of project-based accounts. -- Outstanding Partner South Pacific: Eclipse Computing - Sydney. In July 2002, Eclipse Computing added Microsoft Business Solutions-Axapta(R) to its offering, while continuing to grow its Great Plains business. Within eight months, it built the largest regional Microsoft Axapta practice. Four months later, it had a client base of 22 Microsoft Axapta customers. Eclipse now services more than 400 clients across a broad base of industry sectors and is building vertical markets in finance, insurance, hospitality, leisure, retail, not-for-profit, government, mining, professional services, telecommunications, engineering and technology. -- Outstanding Partner Asia: Enterprise Solutions Group - Hong Kong. In FY03, Enterprise Solutions Group had acquired more than 40 new customers for both Microsoft Business Solutions -- Navision(R) and Microsoft Axapta in Asia. As a result of its FY03 growth, this company now has one of the biggest teams of Microsoft Navision and Microsoft Axapta consultants around the region and has built several add-on solutions that have helped it penetrate selected vertical sectors. -- Outstanding Partner Canada: Axentia Solutions Corp. Axentia Solutions Corp. came to Microsoft Business Solutions following the Navision merger and became an early adopter of Microsoft Business Solutions practices. Already the top Navision partner in Canada before the merger, it continued to grow its business in FY03, finishing the year as Microsoft's top Canadian partner for Navision sales. -- Outstanding Partner EMEA: Columbus IT. Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, Columbus IT is committed exclusively to Microsoft Business Solutions and has fully embraced Axapta. During the first eight months of 2003, it added 80 Microsoft Axapta customers and assisted in the closing of the largest single Microsoft Axapta purchase to date in the product's history. -- Outstanding Partner U.S. : I.B.I.S. Inc. I.B.I.S. Inc. is based in Norcross, Ga. One key to this partner's remarkable growth was its enthusiastic adoption of Microsoft CRM. While embracing the new solution, I.B.I.S. remained a staunch supporter of the Great Plains brand, adding 20 Microsoft Great Plains customers in 2003. -- Global Solution Developer of the Year: MaxQ Technologies Inc. Based in Norwalk, Conn., this year's global solution developer honoree is a true partner in every sense of the word, from product development all the way through to service and support. A Microsoft Gold Certified Business Solutions Partner and certified member of the Microsoft Business Solutions Independent Developers' Program, MaxQ Technologies has twice earned recognition as an Inner Circle partner, is a member of the advisory board and is one of the 14 original Analytical Applications Partners in the Microsoft Data Warehousing Alliance. -- The Eagle Award: Terry Petrzelka of Tectura Corp. Based in Tempe, Ariz., this honoree's organization is built on serving customers over their lifetime and has expanded across all the product lines. In FY03, the company reached its existing customer sales revenue goal and continues to hold quarterly loyalty meetings. As part of his commitment to customers, Petrzelka stresses knowledge growth within the company. His team has earned more than 60 MBS CPP certifications. -- Global Partner of the Year: Aston Business Solutions. Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, Aston Business Solutions' advanced implementation methodology is seen by many as a key to a successful implementation. Aston Business Solutions is by far the largest global partner. The company has 10 locations, 34 product sites and 722 active accounts across the globe. It has outperformed customer loyalty group benchmarks in most products and leads the channel in average revenue per account for Axapta and Navision Standard. -- Excellence in Customer Care: Options Software & Consulting. Based in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, Options Software and Consulting has honed its already strong and evolving focus on driving long-term equity. Options Software and Consulting has dedicated tremendous resources to making sure customer needs are met by maintaining a full-time, in-house support desk and working collaboratively with Microsoft Business Solutions support and development teams to deal with customer issues. -- Marketing Excellence: EYT. Based in Chantilly, Va., EYT produced and managed more than 50 campaigns/events. It also maintained the systems to plan, forecast, administer and track those opportunities in-house. In all, EYT created more than 110,000 impressions and generated more than 1,000 responses. These marketing efforts translated into 37 new customers. EYT remains equally committed to customer retention and currently ranks in the 99th percentile of Great Plains partners, with a 96 percent retention rate. -- Knowledge Excellence: American Express Tax & Business Services. Based in Dublin, Ohio, American Express Tax & Business Services continues to demonstrate its commitment to increasing employee knowledge and competencies. Currently, with 15 employees in the Certified Partner Program, Knowledge Excellence holds 56 individual certifications and boasts 11 Certified Masters -- nine of which were earned in FY03. American Express Tax & Business Services also excels in e-learning with active engagement with more than 50 e-learning topics in progress across the organization. -- Organizational Excellence: NexVue Information Systems. Strategic focus is the hallmark of NexVue's success. Based in Stamford, Conn., NexVue has transformed itself from a broad-based reseller to a high-quality vertical leader. It has aligned its development, sales and marketing resources to support a vertical focus. It has also leveraged the strengths of other ERP partners to deliver solutions to market. This collaboration with other partners is evident in the numerous nominations NexVue received from other partners. NexVue was also recently recognized by a trade journal for maintaining exceptionally high revenue per head and net income per employee. -- Outstanding New Partner Excellence: Fullscope. Based in Ann Arbor, Mich., Fullscope was authorized for Microsoft Axapta and Microsoft CRM in January 2003. It has already sent numerous individuals through Microsoft Axapta and Microsoft CRM training, and two of its employees are completely Microsoft CRM certified. This investment of time and resources has paid immediate dividends. In the months since joining the Microsoft Business Solutions partner community, Fullscope has already generated an impressive sales volume. -- Axapta Excellence: CIRCON Circle Consulting AG. Based in Glattbrugg, Switzerland, CIRCON Circle Consulting AG added 13 new Axapta customers in the first eight months of 2003, bringing its total in Switzerland to 68. By the end of the year, CIRCON Circle Consulting AG expects to more than double 2002 numbers. In the past year, CIRCON Circle Consulting AG established two new subsidiaries in Austria and one in the Czech Republic. It also merged with another Axapta partner in Switzerland and is now developing a vertical solution to further enhance its position. -- Great Plains Excellence: Collins Computing. Based in Mission Viejo, Calif., Collins Computing added 15 new Great Plains customers and generated impressive Great Plains revenue in FY03. Collins Computing works closely with a number of nonprofit organizations, and has developed an add-on solution for tracking grants, which it has installed at customer sites for groups such as the YMCA and Salvation Army. -- Navision Excellence: Cosmo Consult AG. Based in Munster, Germany, this year's Navision Excellence winner, Cosmo Consult AG, added 30 new customers and generated the second-highest revenue among Microsoft Business Solutions partners in Germany. Authorized for Navision in 1996, Cosmo Consult has remained dedicated to Microsoft Business Solutions and the Navision brand. Cosmo Consult AG currently offers four certified vertical solutions, focusing on rental of goods and products, rental of mobile capital goods, nonrepetitive production as ordered and process-oriented production. It also carries the full set of modules and functionality offered by the product lines it supports. -- Solomon Excellence: Omnios LLC. Based in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Omnios LLC has been servicing the Solomon line since 2000. In FY03, Omnios added eight new Solomon customers. Much of Omnios' growth can be attributed to its strategic direction, particularly its successful entry into the Professional Services Automation industry. -- Customer Relationship Management Excellence: ePartners Inc. Corporate. Based in Irving, Texas, ePartners logged above-average feedback throughout the development process as a beta partner for Microsoft CRM. It was the first partner to build integration from Microsoft CRM to SharePoint and has consistently been a top five Microsoft CRM partner based on customer wins and revenue. In 2003, ePartners implemented an unheard of money-back guarantee to implement Microsoft CRM within 60 days, complete with training, for a set price, satisfaction guaranteed. Microsoft Business Solutions also honored the following Microsoft Business Solutions partners earlier in the conference: -- Olsen Thielen Technologies Inc.: FRx(R) Analytics Excellence -- Positive Technology: Retail Management System Partner of the Year -- New West Technologies Inc.: Retail Management System Best Field Advocate Award -- NuRol Corp.: Retail Management Customer Growth Award -- POS Resources Inc.: RMS Business Development Award -- Watermark: Manufacturing Excellence -- Axapta -- TECTURA Corp.: Manufacturing Excellence -- Great Plains -- Myers, Nissi and Company Inc.: Manufacturing Excellence -- Navision -- Sandler*Kahne Software Inc.: Manufacturing Excellence -- Solomon -- Skotty Consulting Group Inc.: Small Business Manager Excellence -- Premier Computing Technologies: Business Portal Excellence -- MaxQ Technologies Inc.: Distribution Industry Award -- VerticalSoft: Distribution Vertical Award -- Watermark: Distribution Supply Chain Award -- NexVue Information Systems: Project Series Excellence -- Solver Inc.: Enterprise Reporting Excellence