PHOTO GALLERY: Big players scoop Frost & Sullivan Australian ICT awards

Award recipients included Cisco Systems, Google, IBM, Polycom, Symantec, Telstra, Verizon, Vodafone, Ninemsn, News Digital Media, realestate.com.au and Fox Interactive Media.

Held for the third consecutive year, Frost & Sullivan hosted the Awards Banquet at a gala dinner in front of 100 IT industry people at Dockside in Sydney’s Cockle Bay Wharf.

“We have experienced dramatic growth in the A/NZ market during 2008, which includes a 100 percent increase in direct sales headcount since April,” said Michael Chetner, country manager A/NZ, Polycom.

“We have made a significant investment in focusing on the customer and redefining our go-to-market strategy over the past 12 months.

"This award is a validation of the hard work and success from our team at Polycom, which also includes our channel partners,” he added.

The Frost & Sullivan Awards recognise outstanding performance by companies in the ICT industry in Australia.

“We are delighted to be recognised by Frost & Sullivan as an industry leader in Unified Communications,” said Craig Campbell, business unit executive, IBM GTS.

“Last year we coined the term UC2 to describe IBM’s own Unified Communications & Collaboration strategy.

“We are drawing from years of experience from clients around the world, as well as IBM’s own initiative to transform our own environment internally, worldwide.

“From this experience, we’ve accumulated a significant amount of intellectual capital, skilled resources and a broad partner ecosystem,” added Campbell.

This year’s awards were focused on five industry categories: Telecoms, Enterprise Communications, IT Security, Digital Media and Sustainable IT. Each of these awards were judged on their market performance or customer satisfaction ratings researched from Frost & Sullivan’s market surveys.

“Market performance is based on our assessment of who leads the market in terms of market share and growth over the past year,” said Mark Dougan, A/NZ managing director, Frost & Sullivan.

“Customer satisfaction is based on the views of customers and end users on the levels of satisfaction they have with various suppliers,” he added.

This year’s inaugural Frost & Sullivan 2008 Sustainable IT Vendor of the Year was awarded to IBM Australia. The other awards went to:

Market Leadership Award in Managed Telephony Services Market; Telstra.

Market Leadership Award in Enterprise Telephony Market: Cisco Systems.

UC System Integrator of the Year: IBM Global Technology Services.

Market Leadership Award in the Videoconferencing Market : Polycom.

Market Leadership Award in the Conferencing Services Market: Telstra.

Market Leadership Award in the Contact Centre Applications Market: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories.

Market Leadership Award in the Secure Content Management Market: Symantec.

Market Leadership Award in the Managed Security Services Market: Verizon.

Market Leadership Award in the Online Classifieds Advertising Market: Seek.

Advertiser Satisfaction Award in the Online Classifieds Advertising Market: realestate.com.au.

Market Leadership Award in the Online General Advertising Market awarded jointly to News Digital Media and Fox Interactive Media.

Advertiser Satisfaction Award in the Online General Advertising Market: NineMSN.

Market Leadership Award in the Online Search Advertising Market: Google.

Advertiser Satisfaction Award in the Online Search Advertising Market: Google.

Market Leadership Award in the Mobile Advertising Market : Vodafone Australia.

“All of these organisations should be congratulated for their achievement over the past year operating in highly competitive markets, with many high quality vendors or suppliers competing in an increasingly tough business environment.

We are delighted to honour them with a Frost & Sullivan award in recognition of their agility, resolve and success both in the marketplace, and in the minds of customers,” said Dougan.

The awards are supported by McCorkell & Associates, with salesforce.com as the platinum sponsor and Viocorp as the official broadcast partner.

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