CMP Media's VARBusiness Magazine Honors Tech Innovator Awards Winners

MANHASSET, N.Y., Oct. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Last night, CMP Media's VARBusiness magazine honored the winners of its third annual Tech Innovator program at an awards event held in conjunction with the XChange Tech Innovators Conference in San Francisco. The Tech Innovator program recognizes vendors for outstanding achievement in technology innovation and represents all major categories of technology products.

"Innovations like what we've seen from the winning companies demonstrate the vibrancy and vitality of the industry," says Lawrence M. Walsh, editor of VARBusiness, the biweekly that covers the business of technology integration. "They represent breakthroughs that will benefit our solution-provider readers and, in turn, the users of technology."

The Tech Innovator awards are given for products introduced, upgraded or completely revised during 2005 and covered 11 different categories. Over 550 entries were received this year, and the 2005 winners are: Wireless/Mobility

SonicWALL: TZ 150 Wireless Components

AMD: Athlon 64x2 dual-core processor Client/Network Security

SonicWALL: Pro 1260 Enhanced Storage

FalconStor: IPStor Enterprise Edition Open Source and Linux

Pingtel: SIPxchange SMB Software

Microsoft: Navision 4.0 Enterprise Software

Symantec: Veritas Enterprise Vault 6.0 Printing and Imaging, Peripherals

Xerox: WorkCentre C2424 Color MFS Server-Based Computing

IBM: eServer p5 570 Client Devices

Toshiba: Libretto U100-S213 Voice/Data Networking

3Com: Switch 8800 Tech Innovator of the Year

IBM was named the VARBusiness Tech Innovator of the Year for its eServer p5 570, an architecture that is flexible and modular to accommodate businesses as they scale.

"The servers are driving IBM's position in the marketplace," says Walsh. "The p5 570, which runs both Unix and Linux operating systems, is expected to continue boosting the fortunes of IBM and its business partners in the year ahead."

The 2005 Tech Innovator winners will be recognized in the VARBusiness Dec. 19 "State of Technology" issue, which includes profiles, features and in-depth explanations of the technologies and products.

APC, Cisco, Lexmark and Toshiba were the 2005 VARBusiness Tech Innovator Awards program sponsors. Methodology

Nominated products were judged in two stages: a first-round examination by VARBusiness' team of technology editors, followed by a final selection by a panel of judges assembled from the solution-provider community. These judges ran the gamut in terms of knowledge and skill sets, from security technologies to network infrastructure to application development. Judges scored products on number of criteria: how new and improved the technology is, its price/performance ratio and finally, its money-making potential for solution providers. About VARBusiness Magazine

For the past 18 years, VARBusiness' strategic resources have been the gateway to the Solution Provider community. VARBusiness provides strategic insight for technology integrators through industry-defining research, in-depth editorial, channel events and innovative Web services, enabling these IT professionals to make educated decisions for their businesses, partnerships and customers. VARBusiness has been the recipient of numerous industry awards for both editorial content and design. Additional information about VARBusiness products, events and services, is available at its Web site, http://www.varbusiness.com. About CMP Media

CMP Media (http://www.cmp.com) is the leading integrated media solutions company providing "broad and deep" access to the entire technology spectrum -- the builders, sellers and buyers of technology worldwide. The company's comprehensive database of technology decision makers enables marketers to reach targeted audiences throughout the purchase process with publications, web offerings, face-to-face events, consulting and other marketing services that deliver actionable results. Contact: Jeanne Fico

CMP Channel Group

(516) 562-7993

Jason Chupick

Plesser Holland Associates

(212) 420-8383 x 108