Tech Innovation Is Alive And Well

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ROBERT DEMARZO

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Can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

I am going to take a wild guess that many of you do not know these companies. But they are all worth taking a look at whether you visit their Web site or look over a summary of their products on our Web site. There were other winners you may not be aware of, too—including Switchvox and Extricom—but there were also some household names, such as Samsung and Panasonic.

Let me tell you a little about this year's competition. A few months back, we issued a call for entries, asking companies to submit their most innovative products—new launches or upgrades—that were released over the past year. The product had to be shipping by Sept. 30, and, of course, we wanted to make sure the companies were engaged with the channel. We have been doing this for years with the number of applicants growing—this year we hit a record 400—and the intensity of the competition has grown to a fevered pitch. Like the recent Jets-Patriots controversy over stealing sideline signs, we actually had one large vendor that went so far as to accuse a rival of falsifying its application. Don't laugh when I tell you that such behavior convinced me that our competition had really arrived. Winners have bragging rights for a full year and receive priceless endorsement from our organization,which draws attention from our loyal readers and online community. By the way, the easy part is writing about the winners. The hard part is borne by our editorial team, which must carefully review each application, compose a group of finalists and then decide upon a winner.

What is different about this competition and the event we wrap around the theme of technology innovation is that it has a singular purpose—to talk about how new technologies can help solution providers meet their growth goals. Many of the solution providers that attend are what I would describe as high-performance organizations looking to grow faster than the industry average. One of their attributes is their willingness to take a risk on new vendors and technologies. At Tech Innovators, if you have the goods, you get the gold.

Let me know about the best new technology you've seen in the past year and I'll include it in my next column. Robert C. DeMarzo ([email protected]) is Vice President/Editorial Director of the CMP Channel magazines.

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