Published on the 08/03/2016 | Written by Newsdesk
Record number of submissions set to make NZ Partner Awards the biggest in nine years of existence…
In the IT industry, it is always awards season and, as one of the most pervasive vendors of them all, the gongs handed out by Microsoft tend to be prized among its partner community. Scheduled for the end of this month, the glitzy affair will see awards across a considerable list of categories (six categories with 20 awards, plus an individual category) exceeded only by the number of finalists (over 30).
Microsoft NZ director for small and midmarket solutions Brent Kendrick said the swathe of finalists was drawn from “an even broader range of entries” and tags cloud computing as a particular force. “The relevance and impact of cloud computing continues to be a strong theme this year, and the finalist partners are, by no accident, those that are transforming their businesses most intentionally and effectively toward cloud-based services.”
Local fame can translate to international recognition, as Kendrick said New Zealand winners have in the past gone on to do well in the vendor’s Global Partner Awards programme. “We celebrated two global winners and four global finalists in 2015,” he said. Those winners were VMob in the ‘Cloud Platform: Application Innovation Partner of the Year’ category; and LeapThought in the ‘Public Sector: CityNext Partner of the Year’ section.
Those trophies are handed out at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference, which this year takes place in Toronto, Canada, in July.
A bit of Kiwi innovation has made its way back to Microsoft’s mothership, too, said Kendrick, with the Redmond HQ team noting an internal recognition category which debuted in New Zealand last year. As a result, the ‘Marketing Partner of the Year’ category is now included at the global level.
Several companies have made it as finalists in multiple categories, notably Intergen and Datacom which are up for a potential six of the best; Fujitsu, Spark Digital and NV Interactive with three; and Dimension Data, Enlighten Designs and Fusion5 with two.
The local New Zealand partner winners will be announced on the 31st March 2016 at The Langham in Auckland.
