The second annual Network World Middle East Awards were presented at a glittering ceremony at the Address Hotel in Dubai Marina last night. The Awards – comprising 22 categories – celebrated innovative networking projects and recognized end-users for their contribution to business, and vendors for their product leadership.
We received more than 200 nominations spanning across different industries and geographies. Winners from the end-user category were chosen based on their successful technology leadership and innovative use of technology to make a real business impact.
The companies that walked away with top honours in the end-user category were:
Data Centre Project of the year: Qatar Foundation
Mobility Project of the year: Abu Dhabi University
Network Security Project of the year: du
Network Cabling Project of the year: Saudi Arabian Airlines
Network Connectivity Project of the year: Sharjah Islamic Bank
Storage Project of the year: SHUAA Capital
Virtualisation Project of the year: Abu Dhabi Ports Company
Collaboration Project of the year: Sheikh Khalifa Medical City
Application Networking Project of the year: National Bank of Abu Dhabi
Enterprise Telephony Project of the year: Kuwait National Petroleum Company
Green IT Project of the year: Landmark Group
Editor’s Choice for Best Practices: DHL Express
Winners in the vendor category were recognized for their outstanding performance and significant impact on the market. The criteria for winning included a variety of indicators, including product innovation, quality of services, major customer wins and commitment to the region.
The award for the Network Security Vendor went to Juniper Networks, while HP earned a honourable mention from the judges. NetApp walked away with the trophy for Storage Vendor of the year, and the award for the Structured Cabling category was bagged by 3M.
Aastra was awarded in the Enterprise Telephony category, and Motorola Solution emerged as the clear winner for the Wireless Vendor of the year. EMW was chosen was the winner of the System Integrator of the year, while both helpAG and Teksalah received honourable mentions from the judges.
Injazat Data Systems was conferred the Managed Service Provider of the year award in the enterprise sector, and Ericsson as the Managed Service Provider of the year in the telecom sector.
Two prestigious categories – Networking Value-Added Distributor and Networking Vendor of the Year- were determined by online voting from readers. We received more than 1500 votes for the Networking VAD category and around 1800 for the Networking Vendor category.
The award for Networking VAD of the year was bagged by FVC, while Cisco won the most-coveted Networking Vendor of the year category by garnering 33% of the total votes polled.
The Network World Middle East Awards were sponsored by HP, 3M Gulf, FVC and helpAG (Gold); Brocade, ManageEngine, Optimus and Meru (Silver); and Avnet (survey sponsor).
