Innovation Was Alive And Well, But What Will The New Year Bring?

Because there were so many excellent products on the market, narrowing down the field proved to be challenging. Several elements were considered before giving the nod to finalists in each category. First and foremost, Test Center engineers focused on a finalist&'s commitment to the channel and how its channel programs created opportunities for partners and supported them. Other key aspects of channel programs included margins, warranties, and training and certification issues.

Of course, the technology itself was a key factor. Test Center engineers focused on a product&'s suitability to the task, overall quality, ease of setup and maintenance, overall feature set and, most importantly, whether the product lived up to the vendor&'s claims. Finally, the overall goal was to recognize excellence and to inform solution providers which products will lead to success in this ever-competitive industry.

2006 may prove to be another challenging year, which makes partnering and technological advancement all the more important. Several of the 2005 finalists have recognized that situation and have fine-tuned or reintroduced channel programs to better engage their current and prospective partners. So, during the selection process, Test Center engineers chose vendors that brought innovation to the table in both technology and channel programs. To see the full range of each vendor&'s technology and commitment to partners, each Product of the Year winner will have a link on our Web site to an in-depth review, which covers both elements in more detail. Go to www.crn.com/testcenter for this additional information.

Of special note: Although 2005 may not go down in history as the year of groundbreaking technology, innovation was still alive and well. The CRN Test Center took a long hard, look at the newer technologies that arrived in 2005 and determined what arguably will have the biggest impact moving forward. Several technologies came to the fore, ranging from virtualization software to Ajax Web application development techniques to SLI video solutions. But one technology rose above the rest to garner additional recognition: multicore processors. The first multicore processors to arrive on the scene came in the form of dual-core units from Advanced Micro Devices and Intel. While both take a slightly different approach to building a multicore processor, the technology still comes down to placing two processor cores onto a single die.

The benefits of that design approach are numerous. Manufacturing costs are only slightly higher than producing single-core chips, motherboard designs can be simplified because all of the supporting equipment required to run traditional multiple processors is eliminated, and low-power/low-heat chips can be manufactured for notebook systems.

What makes multicore processing so interesting is that any multithreaded application can leverage the power of multiple processors, thereby encouraging software developers to create more of these applications and bringing a renaissance of features and capabilities to any application. Virtual PC/Server applications such as VMware and Microsoft Virtual PC will become more attractive to many users, especially those running virtualized operating systems and applications.

Solution providers are poised to jump on the multicore processor opportunity. And “opportunity” is the key word here. Integrated solutions ranging from advanced voice recognition to terminal service-type capabilities will be fueled by the promised performance offered by tomorrow&'s multicore systems. Other considerations include application development, video editing and many other CPU-intensive tasks in which solution providers will become both users and marketers of multicore systems.

A simple concept such as multicore processors offers a wide range of possibilities and may very well change the way people work with computers and applications for 2006 and beyond.