Data Centres Europe 2008 Awards Short List Announced

London, 28 March 2008 – The judges’ panel deciding Awards for the forthcoming ceremony at the 4th Data Centres Europe event, taking place at the Intercontinental Park Lane, London (10-11 April) have announced the shortlisted companies.

In the Best Data Centre Europe Operator award category, companies shortlisted are eBRC (Luxembourg), COLT Telecommunications, Capgemini and Data Electronics (Ireland).

Due to the high number of submissions, and emphasising the importance attached to the quality of response to questions posed during the evaluation stage, the judges also decided there should be four shortlisted companies for the Best Managed Services Provider award: Capgemini, Attenda, easynet and Baltic Data Center UAB (Lithuania).

In the Best Cooling Product category, the shortlisted companies are APC, HP and Chatsworth Products. For the Best Power Product category, APC, Raritan and Validus have been shortlisted.

The Best Disaster Recovery Provider Award was also highly contested, and the judges selected eBRC (Luxembourg), Equinix and Mainroad (Portugal) for the shortlist.

In addition to the categories nominated, a special category is also to be awarded: The Data Centres Europe Green Award (Judges Award), which is to be given to an individual or company nominated individually by each judge, who in the opinion of the judges is making or will make an outstanding contribution to the evolution of green data centres (ranging from concept to architecture and design through to technical operations and service delivery). The companies shortlisted are Equinix, Smartbunker and TelecityGroup.

In the final category, Outstanding Leader in Data Centres Award (CEO Award), the judges received nominations from an exceptional base of international business leaders. In the final analysis, and again based upon the quality of response, the judges have shortlisted Michael F. Foust, CEO and Director, Digital Realty Trust, Bill Clifford, CEO, Aperture and Michael Tobin, CEO, TelecityGroup Data Centres Europe is the only regional event for the sector, and this year extends special coverage to eastern and central Europe, and has delegates attending from more than 20 countries outside the UK.

“Nominations were of an outstanding calibre,” commented Tim Anker, vice-chairman of the Judges Panel, and founder of The Colocation Exchange. “However, the panel worked exhaustively to determine the quality of the response given by the companies competing and the shortlist reflects the results of these efforts. Data Centres Europe is the key regional event in the sector and winning companies will no doubt be able to leverage brand and marketing benefits from these prestigious industry awards.”

Sponsors include BCS, Migration Solutions, Equinix, Citadel100, Datacenter Luxembourg/Inexio, Cellwatch, ARUP, Active Power, BICSI, VMWare, Lamda Hellix Data Centers, Tyco Electronics, the Colocation Exchange, Armstrong, TelecityGroup, CBRichard Ellis, Ni2, CNet, Sand IT and eBRC. Media Partners include the Web Hosting Industry Review, Data Centre Solutions, Webhosting Info, Datacenter Journal and Data Centre News.