Local Gold Certified Microsoft partner Mint has won the Microsoft Regional Winning Customer Award in Enterprise Search for the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region at the 2006 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Boston.
Grant Hodgkinson, business development director at Mint, accepted the accolade at the conference held in July.
The Winning Customer Award recognises the successful and innovative implementation of solutions on the Microsoft platform, which drive substantial value for customers. Mint received this award for expertly developing a solution for Sappi that exemplified the benefit of working on the Microsoft platform.
"For this award, the solution we presented delivers the ability to search content from a number of different content stores, all presented through a common user interface," Hodgkinson says. "Users are able to find information more easily in the organisation, and through this users have been made more productive."
Guido Lauwers, global CIO of Sappi, says: "In our enterprise content management and search initiatives, Sappi has achieved an extraordinary amount in a short time with Mint. Its business understanding and technical implementation capabilities are world-class and the Microsoft partner award is well deserved."
Over 7 000 partners attended this year`s event and nearly 2 400 entries were submitted. The award winners were selected from a group of finalists based on their dedicated use of Microsoft technologies to provide solutions for their customers` needs. Finalists for each category were chosen from defined regions of the world: Asia-Pacific, Canada, China, EMEA, Latin America, Japan and the US.
Microsoft partners are required to nominate themselves for any given award and submit information to justify the recommendation. Detailed questions are then posed by the judges about the technicalities, competitive situation and business issues solved by each candidate.
"Microsoft partner awards are prestigious in their own right," says Pfungwa Serima, MD of Microsoft SA. "This award is a testament to South African ingenuity and innovation. As winner of the award, Mint has shown itself to be ahead of the game locally and internationally.
"Being able to find information effectively in any organisation is vital to that organisation`s success. Mint consistently demonstrates that it is an extremely capable partner in this area, with a thorough understanding of the business and technology drivers alike," adds Serima.
Hodgkinson notes: "The recognition received from Microsoft through the award has resulted in an invitation to participate in a one-on-one session with Chris Capossela, corporate VP, Microsoft Business Division, Product Management Group. Microsoft recognises that it can learn from us in the area of enterprise search."
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Mint helps its customers become more productive and reduce costs in their businesses. Its focus is in the consulting and adoption of solutions for collaboration, knowledge management, document management, content management and workflow solutions, all addressed through portal technologies. Mint is a Johannesburg-based Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. For more information, visit www.mint.co.za.
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