Cream Of The Crop

For security vendors, innovation came in the form of an all-consuming arms race as they tried feverishly to outpace, or at least keep up with, the world's hackers, crackers and spammers while also squeezing the bottom line to keep security affordable.

2003 was the first year that notebooks outsold desktops, and with it, the world of notebooks diversified as the units became customized to specific uses, with wider screens, lighter weights, wireless connectivity and a plethora of options. The year also saw the notebook space invaded by a number of different Tablet PCs, which were quickly gobbled up by niche markets but had little noticeable impact on the mainstream mobile knowledge worker.

For software-focused solution providers and ISVs, improvements to IDEs in 2003 significantly eased Java programming. Development software vendors also charged ahead with major improvements in documentation and training and by adhering to common standards.

For display vendors, reduced prices made flat panels widely affordable, but that coupled with tremendous competition required them to differentiate their offerings with unique features while striving to usurp the all-too-ubiquitous CRT from the corporate desktop. In the wireless arena, higher security, faster speeds and lower costs made the technology more mainstream, leading to advances in notebooks, PDAs, access points and hot spots.

Mother Nature also had a supporting role during the year as a number of natural disasters were hurled at the nation's businesses, resulting in a dramatic growth and diversity of storage solutions. Man-made disasters, from power outages to equipment failures, also added to the mix, along with ever-growing data usage by companies.

To pick the best products of 2003, the CRN Test Center took a step back to scrutinize the wide range of the products spawned by the year's technological ingenuity. Test Center engineers took a fresh look at all of the products reviewed throughout the year, searching specifically for products that offered overall innovation and the most integration opportunities for solution providers, backed by support-rich channel programs.

Solution providers will find that the products selected here can help them increase profits and create new revenue opportunities,especially important in today's chilly times while waiting for the long-overdue thaw. For more in-depth reviews of the winners profiled here, go to a href="/testcenter">crn.com/testcenter.