South African company aiming high at European retail awards

Microsoft today announced that the European Retail Application Developers Awards (RAD Awards) 2001 will take place at the Global Retail Technology Forum in Amsterdam from 14 to 15 March 2001. Local company and last year`s winner of the most innovative solution award, Ultimate Connection, is hoping to repeat its success.

"The award we won last year was a great achievement for our company. It has been a real inspiration for our engineering team and has provided significant value to our sales and marketing efforts. The fact that we have been able to convert some of the most prestigious retail accounts onto ActiveRetail can largely be attributed to the recognition received. We are pleased to hear that there will be another European awards ceremony, and hope to repeat our success next year," says Sonja Leoncini, channel and sales director of Ultimate Connection.

The European RAD Awards aim to recognise excellence in custom applications developed for the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems, by independent software vendors in Europe, Middle East and Africa. The focus of the awards is on innovative retail applications developed to solve specific business challenges, or to take advantage of opportunities in the marketplace.

Following on from the success of the first European RAD Awards in 1999, Microsoft will present the awards next year at the Global Retail Technology Forum, organised by RMDP and the Retail Systems Alert Group. "This event has an international focus, making it as an excellent forum at which to host the awards," says Garry Hodgson, business solutions manager at Microsoft South Africa.

"Microsoft sees the European RAD Awards as an ideal way to reward the development of cutting-edge applications and to bring rising stars to the attention of European retailers. It is inspiring that technology developed by a South African company is able to receive such broad exposure and it proves that local retailers have some of the world`s best technology on their doorstep," she continues.

Categories for the 2001 awards will focus on areas including `Retail In-store Applications`, `Retail Headquarters Applications` and `Retail Supply Chain`. There are also four special awards for Innovation, ActiveStore, BizTalk and Use of Web Technologies. Entrants will be judged on criteria such as quantifiable business benefits, ease of adoption, best integration and exploitation of Internet and intranet technologies, and best use of available technology.

For regular updates on the European RAD Awards 2001, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/europe/industry/retail/rad/