Microsoft Partner Awards' winners announced tonight

Results online at midnight

Microsoft New Zealand’s Partner Awards will be dished out at a swank black tie dinner at Auckland Museum tonight.

The award winners will be announced on reseller.co.nz at midnight, with full coverage appearing in the August 22 issue of Reseller News.

Microsoft received a record number of entries for the awards, with more than 80 submissions in 15 categories from 35 partners. It says the awards are designed to recognise and reward Microsoft Gold, Certified and Small Business specialist partners that have “delivered exemplary and innovative solutions using Microsoft technologies to address customers’ business challenges".

The evening will be exciting and tense for all finalists, especially for first-time entrant, Datasouth.

The Christchurch-based Microsoft Gold partner is a finalist in all five of the categories it entered in the awards – these are the Core Infrastructure Solution, Business Productivity Solution, Application Platform Solution, Citizenship Solution and Small Business Specialist of the Year.

Its nearest rival is Axon, a finalist in four categories, and which won the Core Infrastructure Solution of the Year and Reseller Partner of the Year categories at the inaugural awards last year.

As well, four finalists are vying for the overall Partner Solution of the Year award, won last year by Wellington-based software house Provoke. They are Datacom Systems, Gen-i, Intergen and Revera.