Meet the finalists of the 2018 CRN Impact Awards!

CRN is proud to announce the finalists of the 2018 CRN Impact Awards, which recognise the supplier-led Australian IT projects and tech innovators that are making a difference for customer organisations.

This marks the second year of the CRN Impact Awards after the highly successful launch in 2017.

Any IT supplier knows that proven customer testimonials and success stories provide some of the best evidence of the power of technology to transform business. That's why we launched the CRN Impact Awards.

Customer outcomes delivered by technology are at the heart of the awards.

This year, as well as entries from resellers, managed service providers and cloud integrators, we also opened up new categories for Australian companies that are commercialising their own IP, such as software startups and established Australian independent software vendors (ISVs). We also launched a new category for distributors and added a category for projects centering around networking and communications.

Today we present the 50 finalists across 11 categories. The competition was fierce, and we thank all the companies who entered, and urge you to try again next year.

Microsoft leads the pack in terms of the vendors that underpin the finalist projects, with more than 10 of the company's channel partners recognised, including startups that have built their technology on its cloud platform.

Amazon Web Services also featured heavily in the list, with more than half a dozen projects and partners. Telstra, Salesforce, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP and Cisco also count multiple partners among the finalists.

The award winners will be revealed at the gala ceremony on Thursday 3 May in Sydney, as part of the CRN Pipeline conference.

The projects cover the full gamut of innovation taking place in the Australian channel, from infrastructure modernisation, to hardening cybersecurity defences, to delivering the workplaces of the future.

We have also recognised 15 Australian IP innovators that have built their own products covering areas such as artificial intelligence, public cloud, security and the internet of things.

You can explore all of the finalists at the CRN Impact Awards digital hub, where you can see the full list of finalists, and read summaries of the 50 finalists across the 11 categories.

We have also published longer, in-depth profiles of every finalist. These stories are currently locked for subscribers only, so please sign up for free, or wait until we unlock the stories as we progressively publish them on our Channelwire newsletter over the next few weeks.