Handango has announced the winners of the Handango Champion Awards at the Handango Partner Summit. Judged by members of the media and other industry experts, the Handango Champion Awards honor the best in mobile software. Winners will receive award packages including a $5,000 marketing stipend and other promotional opportunities.

The awards ceremony was sponsored by Sony Ericsson, Nokia, palmOne and Microsoft. The Handango Partner Summit was sponsored by these and Symbian, Research in Motion, PalmSource, Cingular Wireless, AT&T Wireless, HP, Orange, Vodafone, Sierra Wireless, Telstra, @irBitway, Commsmart, Geekzone, MyPDACafe and VeriSign.

The dinner event was hosted under the stars at the historic San Diego Zoo. After a twilight tour of the zoo and a gourmet meal, attendees were treated to an entertaining awards presentation in which winners received their trophies and accolades from their peers.

"The Handango Champion Awards are designed to recognize exceptional mobile applications developed by outstanding companies," said Randy Eisenman, president and chief executive officer of Handango. "With the help of our elite panel of judges, we are able to honor the winners for their excellent accomplishments, which have made the lives of Handango's customers more productive and fun."

Award finalists, which were announced on May 13, 2004, were chosen by customer votes and expert nominations. The winners were determined by a panel of industry luminaries including representatives from Laptop Magazine, SymbianOne, PhoneScoop, RCR Wireless, PocketGoddess, USA Today/Gannett News, The Wireless Developer Network, Network Computing, The Gadgeteer, My-Symbian, Palm Infocenter, Bityard Magazine, TheFeature, PDAStreet, Wireless Gaming Review, KGO AM810, Network World, Smartphone Thoughts and Java World.

Awards were presented for Symbian OS, Palm OS, Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Java, Windows Mobile Smartphone and Linux. Winners were:

Palm OS

Best Business 46070 Agendus Professional Edition by iambic

Best Education 82639 PocketLingo College by HLCSoft

Best Fitness 27819 PDAbs by Acrocat Software

Best Game 94353 Atari Retro by Mobile Digital Media

Best Lifestyle 27319 Vindigo City Guide by Vindigo

Best Medical 60737 BluefishRx Prescription Writer by Bluefish

Best Productivity 20928 Documents To Go by DataViz

Best Travel 5330 WorldMate 2004 by MobiMate

Symbian OS

Best Business 89620 Quickoffice Premier by iGo

Best Education 62173 Answer Please Unit Converter by neohand

Best Game 51850 MGS Karting by Noumena Innovations

Best Lifestyle 94338 3GPP Philips Camcoder by Philips Software

Best Medical 91526 HealthCalc by L3Solutions

Best Productivity 88833 eZiTap FEP by Zi Corporation

Best Travel 59952 WorldMate 2004 by MobiMate

Windows Mobile Pocket PC

Best Business 96451 BillRate by Two Peaks Software

Best Education 56181 DictionaryToGo by LearningToGo

Best Fitness 23427 BioBody by Biomobility

Best Game 93431 200 Solitaires Collection by Paragon Technologie

Best Lifestyle 10625 Intelligolf Birdie Edition by Karrier Communications

Best Medical 102487 Davis's Drug Guide by Unbound Medicine

Best Productivity 83676 PhatPad by PhatWare

Best Travel 88672 TUBE Map Series by Visual IT

Emerging (Windows Mobile Smartphone and Linux)

Best Business 111227 Power Calendar by Developer One

Best Education 48196 Sharp Doc & E-book Reader by ComCreation

Best Game 83516 Pocket Mini Golf by Momentum Games

Best Lifestyle 92915 SplashPhoto by SplashData

Best Medical 110963 Medical Dictionary by Beiks

Best Productivity 112779 Keep Track by Ilium Software

Best Travel 92255 Smart Traffic by Pharos Science and Applications

Java

Best Business 83392 XTNDConnect PC Phone Sync by Extended Systems

Best Education 44104 Merriam-Webster Crossword by JSmart Technologies

Best Game 89067 Worms by THQ

Best Lifestyle 83923 SMSXtender by SIMEDA

Best Fitness & Health 96005 Carb Manager by Digital Brew House

Best Productivity 60602 Reqwireless Value Bundle by Reqwireless

Best Travel 83404 Rand McNally Mobile Travel Tools by Rand McNally

At the awards ceremony, Handango also recognized six software companies with a Developer of the Year award for their outstanding software development, committed customer care and forward-thinking innovation. The winners of the Developer of the Year award were:

Palm OS: Astraware

Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC: Futech

Symbian OS: MobiMate

Java: Sega Mobile

Windows Mobile-based Smartphone: PocketX Software

Linux: theKompany.com