Midsize Enterprise Summit Innovation And Product Awards
Winners Line
Everything Channel handed out its Innovation Awards and Midmarket Value Product (MVP) awards at Midsize Enterprise Summit held April 18-20 in Boca Raton, Fla. Here's a look at the winners, as well as some other highlights.
Best Midmarket Solution -- Services
Google won the Best Midmarket Solution -- Services Innovation award, beating out other nominees -- Birst, Brazil IT and Microsoft. The Innovation awards are voted on by CIOs in attendance at MES based on vendors' technology, presentations and show experience. Pictured are from left are Everything Channel's Brad Rolfe and Google team members Ryan Little, Debbie Leight and Derek Niddery.
Best Midmarket Solution -- Hardware
Hewlett-Packard's Kevin Hooper, (left), and Intel's Michael Swain, (right), accept the Innovation award from Everything Channel's Katherine Busey for best hardware solution. HP collaborated with Intel for the award, to top other nominees Compellent, Shoretel and TriGeo Network Security.
Best Midmarket Solution -- Software
QlickView captured the software Innovation award, besting fellow nominees CommVault, Information Builders and TriGeo Network Security. Accepting for QlikView were, (from the left), Mike Booth, Dan Grosz and Neil Florio.
Best Execution of a Midmarket IT Solution
TriGeo Network Security won the Innovation award for Best Execution of a Midmarket IT Solution from the CIOs at MES. Other nominees were Google, HP/Intel and Shoretel.
Michelle Dikman, TriGeo president and CEO, holds the award, flanked by her team, (from left), Jamie Winterset, Robert Johnson, Sharla Mclean and Michael Maloof. Everything Channel's Katherine Busey is at right.
Best Presentation
TriGeo took home its second Innovation award of the evening, winning Best Presentation. HP/Intel, Information Builders and Shoretel were also nominated. TriGeo's Robert Johnson, (left), and Michelle Dickman picked up the award.
Best of Show
HP/Intel also captured the most coveted Innovation award, Best in Show. Other Best in Show finalists were LifeSize, Shoretel and TriGeo. Here, HP's Hooper speaks to the audience during a keynote presentation.
MVP -- Security Finalist
Everything Channel also gave away its first Midmarket Value Product (MVP) Awards, which were based on feedback from CIOs, solution providers and our own editorial team and were based on customer service, how well the vendor's technology fits a midsize enterprise, and the vendor's commitment to solution providers serving midmarket customers.
In the security category, Kaspersky Lab was chosen runner-up for its Mobile 8.0 for Windows. Kaspersky's Dan Burke, (left), vice president of enterprise sales, accepts the award from Everything Channel's Robert DeMarzo.
MVP -- Security Winner
TriGeo Network Security picked up its third award of the night, taking the top spot in security for its Security Information Management (SIM) Version 5. Accepting for TriGeo is Michelle Dickman, President and CEO, with Everything Channel's Scott Campbell.
MVP -- Productivity Applications -- Winner
IBM took home the MVP award in Productivity Applications for its IBM Cognos Express offering, which incorporates much of the technology from the enterprise-class Cognos business intelligence system IBM acquired in January 2008 but tailors it for midmarket businesses with between 100 and 1,000 employees. Caroline Seymour, business unit executive, market strategy, for IBM, accepted the award from Everything Channel's Robert DeMarzo.
MVP -- Storage Finalist
Dell was chosen as the runner-up in the storage category for its EqualLogic PS series of iSCSI SAN appliances that include models suitable for remote offices to enterprise data centers. Bob Skelley, (right), director of global enterprise, architecture, Dell Global Commercial Channel, accepts the award from Everything Channel's Campbell.
MVP -- Storage Winner
Compellent won the MVP Storage category for Compellent Storage Center 5, which scales according to customer requirements to provide disaster recovery and cost-effective automated tiered storage for enterprises of all sizes. Everything Channel's Robert DeMarzo, right, presented the award to Compellent's Michael Beach, vice president of sales operations.
MVP -- Data Center Winner
VMware won the Midmarket Value Product award for its ESXi and vSphere4 solutions. Steve Furtado, (left), director of global partner sales, accepts the award from Everything Channel's Campbell.
MVP -- Networking Finalist
LifeSize's 220 Series Telepresence solution captured the finalist award for networking. LifeSize, which was acquired by Logitech last fall, has attempted to position itself as a lower-cost yet feature-rich alternative and the launch of the 220 Series portfolio last October was seen as a breakthrough to both CIOs and solution providers. Accepting the award for LifeSize is Rick Steinman, (left), director of sales.
MVP -- Networking Winner
Digium devotees call its AA355 Switchvox PBX "VoIP-in-a-box." The turnkey, open source IP-PBX system for SMBs captured the MVP winner's award in networking. Leslie Conway, Digium's vice president of global marketing, accepts the award from Everything Channel's Campbell.
Best Defense Is A Strong Offense
George Kafkarkou, general manager and senior vice president at CA's Internet Security business unit, told the crowd of CIOs that it's not enough for midsize companies -- or companies of any size -- to just protect malware at the end point.
More malware was created in 2009 than in all the previous years combined, and that rate will continue again this year, Kafarkou said in a tech symposium address.
"The complexity of this stuff is growing exponentially. The motivation has moved from [planting] a virus to be purely sinister. They're after you're money," he said.
Think Twice About Virtualizing Desktops
Charles Smulders, vice president, the client computing platform group at Gartner, told the CIOS that companies looking to desktop virtualization as a means of saving significant costs supporting their organization's PCs are in for a rude awakening.
"This is a nascent market. It's also a more complex market than the server virtualization market and the ROI, the clear return isn't there," Smulders said during a breakout session at Midsize Enterprise Summit.
Organizations need to deeply explore what the technical, practical and financial considerations are when deploying what Gartner calls Hosted Virtual Desktops (HVD), Smulders said.
Dressed For Success
Everything Channel teamed with Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft to raise money for Dress for Success, a charity that provides clothing and accessories for women and men in the Miami area. Pictured here, (from left), are Everything Channel's Katherine Busey, Laura Lee Brennan of HP, Sonia Jacobson with Dress for Success and Sandy Hamel with Microsoft.