Cloud solutions dominate 2013 Microsoft NZ Partner Awards

Cloud solutions dominated at this year’s Microsoft New Zealand Partner awards event, held in Auckland last night, reflecting the growing strength of cloud solutions in the New Zealand IT landscape over the past year.

Held at the Langham Hotel in Auckland’s CBD, the field of contenders with strong cloud solutions continued the trend that was seen at last year’s event, as did the addition of two new category awards in the cloud division this year.

Multiple award winners also stood out, with SoftSource picking up three awards, and Gen-i and IT Engine collecting two awards each.

“We had an outstanding number of entries this year, with exceptionally high standards which made the process of selecting the winners very difficult. It’s great for us to be able to reward and recognise companies for their dedication to provide innovative solutions that make customers’ lives easier,” says Brent Kendrick, Small and Mid-market Solutions and Partners Director Microsoft New Zealand.

The biggest winner of the night was SoftSource, picking up the top prizes in the Mid-market Solution Provider, Sales Specialist of the Year and Cloud SMB categories. The company was praised for its commitment to providing tailored solutions, for easing the technology transition of sceptics and traditionalists, and for opening clients’ minds to newer technologies and improved solutions.

Winning the Mid-market Solution Provider prize was SoftSource’s work with environmental planning and design consultancy Boffa Miskell after they received damage in the Christchurch earthquake. SoftSource found that an array of operating systems were causing serious difficulties communicating and file sharing, and used these pain points to create an exciting and innovative solution.

Sandi Dunn, Marketing Manager at SoftSource says, “No two businesses are exactly the same, so SoftSource strives to ensure every detail is attended to, even if it is outside of the SoftSource solution. Partnering with Microsoft allows us to arrange site visits for our clients to experience Office 365 in use at similar sized businesses. This is a major confidence-building step for people who are finding it difficult to embrace the challenge of new cloud technology.”

IT Engine won the Small Business award for the work they did for The Rural General Practitioners Network (RGPN). RGPN were disappointed with their previous cloud service, often experiencing network outages of more than three hours, several times a week, and had problems saving new contract data which affected their business immensely. IT Engine shifted RGPN to a reliable and robust hybrid cloud service that delivered the availability and functionality they needed to be productive and get on with their work.

The Cloud Enterprise award winner, Datacom, picked up the prize for transitioning Zespri’s infrastructure and enterprise applications globally from on-premise, to 100 per cent public cloud. So far, SAP, core services and zespri.com have already been successfully migrated.

Also, Telecom’s digital solutions division Gen-i won the award for Communications Competency for a business solution for their work using Microsoft Lync to address common client challenges such as out of date PABX systems, and complicated decentralised storage of information.

A total of 22 awards were handed out across four main categories including Cloud, Competency, Individual and Segment. The full list of winners and finalists from the Microsoft New Zealand 2013 Partner Awards is below.

Microsoft New Zealand 2013 Partner Awards

 

Cloud Awards
Cloud SMB:
Winner: SoftSource
Finalists: Full Suite, PC Media
Cloud Enterprise:
Winner: Datacom
Finalists: Enlighten Designs
Cloud Hosting:
Winner: OneNet
Finalists: N/A

 

Competency Awards: Core Infrastructure
Devices and Deployment
Winner: Gen-i
Finalist: CodeBlue
Management and Virtualisation
Winner: Dimension Data
Finalists: Computer Concepts, Dimension Data
Server Platform
Winner: IT Engine
Finalists: Dimension Data, Computer Concepts Limited

 

Competency Awards: Application Platform
Business Intelligence
Winner: Theta
Finalist: Stellar
Windows 8 App Developer
Winner: Marker Metro
Finalist: NV Interactive
Windows Azure Solution
Winner: Provoke Solutions
Finalists: LeapThought, Theta

 

Competency Awards: Business Productivity
Collaboration and Content
Winner: Enlighten Designs
Finalists: Datacom, Intergen
Communications
Winner: Gen-i
Finalists: Dimension Data, Provoke Solutions

 

Competency Awards: Business Applications
CRM
Winner: Koorb Consulting
Finalists: Intergen
ERP
Winner: Intergen
Finalist: Theta

 

Individual Awards
Sales Specialist of the year
Winner: SoftSource
Finalist: N/A
Pre-Sales Technical Specialist of the year
Winner: Computer Concepts Limited
Finalist: Provoke Solutions

 

Segment Awards
Distributor
Winner: Express Data
Finalist: N/A
Education
Winner: Cyclone
Finalist: Business Mechanix, New Era
Innovative Technology for Good Citizenship
Winner: NV Interactive
Finalist: Magnetism
Learning
Winner: Auldhouse
Finalist: Kinetics, Auldhouse
Midmarket Solution Provider
Winner: SoftSource
Finalist: IT Engine, CodeBlue
Small Business
Winner: IT Engine
Finalist: Kinetics
Volume Licensing Partner of the year
Winner: Insight
Finalists: Gen-I, Fujitsu, Dimension Data