This year's eXcellence Awards judges pick 15 winners and 30 distinguished finalists from a cast of 538 based on technical performance and product relevance.The eWEEK Corporate Partner judges for the second annual eWEEK eXcellence Awards program know that their own jobs may depend on the product decisions they make. Not only technical performance but also product relevance are crucial considerations.
The eWEEK eXcellence Awards are not a beauty contest but a real-world exercise in identifying candidates for enterprise adoption. The awards were guided this year by extensive interaction between the judging teamscomprising eWEEK Labs analysts and members of eWEEKs Corporate Partner advisory boardand vendor representatives. The evaluation process was also aided by customer references, with discussions between current users and judges often determining the final choices.
The corporate judges scrutiny, augmented by the broad hands-on experience and evaluation insights of eWEEK Labs analysts, reveals the best that the industry has to offerwithout regard to company size or market power. The slate of winners covers the full rangefrom household names such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co. to upwardly mobile innovators such as Dirig Software Inc. and FaceTime Communications Inc.doing credit to the depth and objectivity of the process that began with 538 entries and narrowed to the 15 winners and 30 distinguished finalists that we present here.
By their choices, the enterprise IT builders of the eWEEK Corporate Partner board tell hopeful technology suppliers that buyers want to get more bang from already-spent bucksthat they want their technology road maps to be drawn on their own white boards, not by vendors marketing departments.
With growing visibility to corporate managers as the engine of productivity growth and the wedge that opens dynamic new markets, every corporate IT department is under pressure to deliver sooner rather than later.
Our eXcellence winners exemplify the kind of product that will earn these buyers favor in this challenging, but also invigorating, climate.