IBM Honors Partners

IBM

Key Information Systems, Woodland Hills, Calif., Tech Frameworks, Santa Rosa, Calif., and Emerging Technology Solutions, Franktown, Colo., earned the Excellence in Partnering award. The solution providers teamed up to provide Gundlach Bundschu Winery with a solution to manage its 3,000-plus wine club members. Because of the implementation, Bundschu anticipates the payback on the initial investments will be seen in less than three months; estimated ROI is 195 percent in the first year, said IBM executives.

In the "Best Leveraging Information for Competitive Advantage Solution" category, Belgium-based IBM Premier Business Partner Andersen won top honors for its work with Delta Lloyd Life (DLL), connecting disparate information after a number of mergers and acquisitions.

For the "Best Managing Technology Solution," Datatrends Technologies, Minnetonka, Minn., took the No. 1 spot for its work in creating a check imaging repository solution for a major U.S. financial services institution. Datatrends designed the solution using Tivoli Storage Manager and disaster-recovery software.

As an example of the growing need to integrate the Web into all existing applications, NetSetGo, Rochester, N.Y., won the award for the best WebSphere e-business solution.

Digital Union UK Ltd. won "Greatest Innovation in e-Business" for Speak-ez, its voice-enabling solution built upon WebSphere Voice Server.

Sysinct won in the category of "Greatest Mid-market Success" for the Java-based solution it provided for Industrial Scientific, a midsize manufacturer of gas-detection and -monitoring products.

In addition to these awards, IBM gave four distinguished geography awards to solution providers.

In Asia Pacific, Mesiniaga Berhad took top honors for achieving year-to-year revenue growth of more than 221 percent in IBM software in 2001.

In Europe/Middle East/Africa, Tectrade Computers Ltd. won the Beacon Award for its expertise in storage solutions.

In Latin America, Grupo PISSA garnered the top spot partly due to its reputation for deep IT expertise, achieving more than 30 sales and technical certifications in IBM products.

Lastly, Silicon Plains Technologies won in the North American category. The West Des Moines, Iowa-based solution provider grew its IBM software revenue by 400 percent year-over year and has made inroads in the e-government and public sector markets.

More than 130 business partners from 23 countries were nominated for the honors, with judging done by journalists, industry analysts and IBM executives.