i5 named Microsoft Partner of Year finalist

Local solutions provider i5 has been selected as a finalist in at least two categories for Microsoft's Partner of the Year award.

The categories are Information Worker Solutions, Portals and Enterprise Content Management, and Competing to Win: Web. Winners for the 2007 Microsoft Partner Programme awards, which recognise top Microsoft Partners delivering market-leading, Microsoft-based solutions, will be announced on 11 July in Denver, Colorado at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.

Glen Ansell, i5 managing director, welcomes the nominations. "This is an encouraging development for i5; having been in business for just four years, we have, as a company, made great headway into the South African market, providing a range of solutions particularly around CRM, business intelligence and the Web to blue-chip corporations.

"The close relationship we have forged with Microsoft as the vendor on which we base our solutions has resulted in benefits for i5 and Microsoft, and most importantly, to our customers," he says.

Ansell adds that it is rewarding to see businesses gaining advantages through the application of Microsoft's technologies. "This is the sharp end of the research and development that is invested in creating environments where information is freely and securely exchanged for better business performance," he says.

Awards will be presented in a number of categories, with winners chosen from a pool of more than 1 800 entrants worldwide.

The Information Worker Solutions awards recognise exceptional partners that have excelled in offering breakthrough Microsoft Office system solutions. The winning partner's technology and marketing offerings have increased its customers' employee productivity and assisted them in connecting with their business partners and customers.

The winning partner's innovative thinking must have helped to solve a technical challenge, or helped to address its customers' business needs and empower its people, and has had a unique and positive impact on customers' business pain points.

Meanwhile, the Competing to Win Partner of the Year: Web award, recognises partners who have won customers with Live Services, Office Live, ASP.NET, IIS, Vista and IE7, Windows Server 2003 and Expression Web, where Web solution alternatives such as Adobe, PHP, Apache, ColdFusion were a consideration or a prior deployment.

Solution categories include: Web content, e-commerce, design, media and community. The winning partner will have helped its customer better manage their business while securing an important market on the Microsoft platform.

"We have a diverse and talented partner ecosystem that each year raises the bar in the design and deployment of customer solutions built on Microsoft technologies," says Allison L Watson, corporate vice-president of Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group. "We are pleased to recognise i5 as one of our partners leading the field in this category."

Continuing, Ansell says i5's focus on providing with technology solutions that enable collaboration with internal and external customers allows businesses to more effectively engage customers, partners and employees.

"Information drives the modern business. i5 is delivering the ability to gather and exchange personalised information in a timely and accurate fashion, delivering the insights that help people make intelligent decisions."

The Microsoft Partner Programme awards recognise Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the past year.