Best Of RetailVision Europe: And The Winners Are...

Several hundred of Europe's top retailers sat through presentations from the hottest retail product providers in the world at RetailVision Europe on May 14-17 in Rome and then placed their votes for best hardware vendor, best software vendor, best accessory vendor, best retail strategy, best presentation, and best overall vendor. Before the prizes were handed out retailers and vendors decked out in formal attire, were treated to a high style European dinner and entertainment. Here retail and vendor executives alike dine and listen to some mellow sounds from a jazz flute-percussionist duo before the big awards ceremony.

VisionEvents Director of International Events Gemma Walker, master of ceremonies for the big night, thanks all the retailers, distributors and vendors for making RetailVision Europe a big success. Walker gave a special tip of the hat to GfK R&T Global Marketing Director for IT and Office Pascal Bollon for his presentation, "Weathering or Riding 2008? The Consumer Landscape As Is" presentation and Bob Snyder, editor in chief, Consumer I.T., who gave a presentation titled "The Ten Most Disruptive Technologies."

In the great tradition of European circus and variety acts, a master of bubble art created an imaginative world of bubbles filled with an amazing array of bubble shapes and sizes and beautiful bubble rainbows. The bubble kingdom left the crowd breathless.

No, this is not a scene from one of the wildly popular X-Men movies. It's an incredible illusion from a master of laser and light manipulation. The mind-blowing laser performance had the RetailVision Rome attendees applauding loudly.

World acclaimed artist Jean-Pierre Blanchard, who paints abstract-like portraits of famous people in only minutes, had the crowd on the edge of their seats waiting to see who he was painting. Who else could it be in Rome, but great Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti. Bravo Blanchard. Bravo Pavarotti!

Western Digital, one of the pioneers and leaders in the storage market, walked away with the top hardware vendor honor. Here Maurizio Di Carlo, business manager of Italy - Branded Products for Western Digital (center), accepts the trophy from Director of International Events Gemma Walker (left) and ChannelWeb News Editor Steven Burke.

For the first time ever, the top product software award was shared by two vendors because of a dead heat tie in votes cast by retailers. Kaspersky Lab, which has won a number of honors for its award winning security products, shared the top honors in the best product software category. Here Ralf Tegethoff, vice president of Consumer Sales Europe for Kaspersky Lab, is all smiles as he receives the award from Walker and Burke. To find out whom Kaspersky shared the honor with click to the next slide.

Serif, whose PagePlus X3 Professional Publisher has been one of the long time leaders in the publishing market, shared top product software honors with Kaspersky Lab. Here Walker (left) and Burke with hands held high in background honor Serif's best from left to right: Sales Director Ashley Hewson; Head of Business Development EMEA Ellie Dyke; Account Manager EMEA Rachel Smith; and Director of Global Business Development Scott Johnson.

Pelikan, a longtime leader in the writing industry that has extended its breakout products into the printing category, took the top award in the extremely competitive accessories segment. Here the Pelikan executives team up to receive the award from Walker and Burke. Pelikan's team left to right is Carsten Hamann-Werner (Regional Sales Manager), Gert-Jan de Groot (Regional Sales Manager), Ulf Hansson (Regional Sales Manager), Walker, Erik Andriessen (European Marketing Manager Hardcopy), Bjrn Katerbau (VP Sales Central and Eastern Europe) and Burke.

Exspect, which is winning raves from retailers for its MiBag, walked away with the prestigious Best Retail Strategy Award. The MiBag solves that nasty retail problem of getting stuck stocking the wrong color and then being forced to deal with the high cost of bad inventory. The nifty MiBag latptop bag allows retailer to sell the standard black bag and then swap it out with six different colors (Red, Green, Brown, Blue, Purple And Silver) as an added option. Here Walker (far left) and Burke (far right) pose for a photo with the winning Exspect team from left to right: Tracey Brown (Commercial Manager), Michael Sanderson (Head of Development), and Neil Meredith (General Manager).

I.R.I.S., a document management kingpin with mobile scanners and pens, gave retailers something to look at winning the intensely competitive Best Presentation Award. Here Walker (far left) and Burke (far right) honor the always well-presented I.R.I.S. team from left to right: Account Manager Christian Lombardi, Account Manager Daniele De March and Channel Sales Director Bernard de Fabribeckers. For further proof just how good these guys are at presentation go to YouTube and type in IRIS and RetailVision.

Storage giant Western Digital walked away with its second award of the night and the top overall honor, the best vendor award, to cap off the Awards ceremony. Here special presenter (left) Jon Atherton, group vice president commercial for distributor Entatech, and Walker (far left) give the big award to Maurizio Di Carlo, business manager of Italy - Branded Products for Western Digital (center).

The winners celebrated and all attendees and executives shared some laughs to close out the RetailVision event. Here, Burke gives a mad bear hug to perplexed Entatech Group Vice President Commercial Jon Atherton as a beaming Luciano Pavarotti looks on. It was a hard driving three days of intense meetings combined with some time to get to know fellow retailers and vendor executives. See you next time at RetailVision Fall in San Diego Aug. 25-28 or at RetailVision Middle East in the Dubai United Arab Emirates November 3-5.