Kloud, Empired, Mexia, Rhipe lead Microsoft award nominations

Microsoft Australia has announced the 2016 finalists for its annual partner awards, with the winners to be revealed September at the Australian Partner Conference.

Similar to last year, Kloud Solutions lead the pack with five Microsoft Australia Partner Awards (MAPA) nominations - in the categories of Excellence in Cloud Platform, Excellence in Enterprise Social, Excellence in Managed Service, Excellence in Solution Sales Specialisation and Technology for Social Impact.

National solutions provider Empired had four nominations this year, making appearances in the Excellence in Cloud Customer Relationship Management, Excellence in Business Insights and Data, Excellence in Marketing and Excellence in Technology Solutions Specialisation categories.

Rhipe followed with three nominations, as well as Mexia, which registered over 96 percent revenue growth last year to rank number 12 in the 2015 CRN Fast 50. Last year's big winner Readify, which took home four gongs in 2015, was nominated in two categories this year to top off a big week that saw it acquired by Telstra on Monday.

Melbourne-headquarted Kloud won the excellence in cloud customer award last year while in 2014 it took two prizes home - cloud solutions and collaboration and content partner of the year. Kloud is now also owned by Telstra, after a blockbuster acquisition in January.

Empired stands number 13 in the current CRN Fast50 for recording 92 percent revenue growth last year. The ASX-listed company recently helped St Vincent de Paul's shift to a Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform and will upgrade its existing infrastructure to Office 365 cloud service.

At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference next week in Toronto, MOQdigital will be recognised as the 2016 Microsoft Australian Country Partner of the Year. MOQdigital was also one of the seven Australian partners to be nominated for global Microsoft awards this year, along with Kloud, DDLS and Ensyst.

This year Microsoft Australia received almost 200 nominations across the 20 categories. The winners will be announced during the Australian Partner Conference that will take place 5-8 September on the Gold Coast.

Microsoft director of partner business and development Phil Goldie wrote in a blog post that he had never read such "rich customer stories".

"But what really struck me are the wonderfully diverse places these stories have come from. From the large national players located in metropolitan areas, to smaller yet equally vital partners in regional Australia; this year’s MAPA submissions are a real showcase of the diverse yet powerfully interconnected tapestry that is our partner network."