Microsoft Announces 2005 Partner Program Award Winners

Microsoft Corp. today announced the finalists and winners of select award categories for the 2005 Microsoft® Partner of the Year Award. The awards recognize Microsoft Certified and Gold Certified partners that developed exemplary solutions for their customers during the past year. More than 1,800 entries were submitted by partners worldwide, and finalists were selected based on their dedicated use of Microsoft technologies to provide solutions for their customers’ needs.

The winners will be honored at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2005, Microsoft’s premier annual partner event, July 8–10, 2005, in Minneapolis.

“Each year, Microsoft has the distinct pleasure of recognizing Certified and Gold Certified partners that have demonstrated an impressive level of creativity in using technology to deliver excellence to their customers,” said Allison Watson, vice president of the Worldwide Partner Sales and Marketing Group at Microsoft.

“The finalists and award winners announced today have exceeded expectations in delivering outstanding customer service and optimization of Microsoft technologies.”

Microsoft announced the winners of the Special Initiative awards in the Winning Customer and Customer Experience categories. The Winning Customer recognizes the successful implementation of solutions on the Microsoft platform, resulting in the migration of customers to Microsoft technologies from competing technologies such as Novell Inc.’s NetWare, UNIX, Linux or others.

The Customer Experience award recognizes the outstanding customer service partners have provided to their customers by demonstrating their understanding of customers’ needs, and honors partners’ ingenuity in developing unique and relevant approaches to customer outreach.

Microsoft Partner Program Award finalists will be honored in the following categories, each of which represents a particular business practice area or partner business model.