Kiwi Companies Win Big At Global Partner Awards

Express Data and Intergen win recognition through innovative use of Microsoft technology to exceed customer expectations and solve business problems.

Microsoft today announced the winners and finalists of its 2010 Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year Awards. Express Data New Zealand was the overall winner of Worldwide Distribution Partner of the Year, ahead of 53 companies from around the globe, while Intergen was awarded Microsoft Country Partner of the Year. This is the first time New Zealand companies have won at the global awards.

The annual awards honour Microsoft certified partners for delivering exemplary solutions for their customers during the past year, using Microsoft technology to exceed customer expectations and solve business problems. Award winners and finalists were chosen from nominations from around the world, with nearly 3,000 entries submitted by partners from over 110 countries. The award finalists and winners were selected from a group of nominations based on their dedicated use of Microsoft technologies to provide solutions for their customers’ needs.

“We want to congratulate the New Zealand 2010 Partner Award finalists and winners for delivering such creative and superior Microsoft solutions and services and stamping the New Zealand name on these awards,” says Kevin Ackhurst, Country Manager for Microsoft New Zealand

“It’s incredible to see the level of expertise our partners continue to exhibit as they create and deliver innovative solutions and services to grow their businesses, meet customer needs and drive down costs. We are proud to be able to work with such creative and dedicated companies.”

Express Data, one of New Zealand’s two Microsoft distribution companies, has a strong growth record based on executing a business plan formulated to complement Microsoft NZ’s strengths in the New Zealand market.

“As a Microsoft distributor, we are focused on ensuring our resellers do the best possible Microsoft licensing for their customers, and have developed world leading systems and processes to ensure businesses in New Zealand (and Australia) purchasing Microsoft products experience service at least as good as anywhere in the world,” says Paul Plester, GM Sales and Marketing for Express Data New Zealand.

“We have some of the most skilled people in the industry, and use this knowledge base to help make our partners more successful by focusing on adding value to their customer offerings.”

“Winning this award is like New Zealand winning the Football World Cup, for business. It is confirmation that we are the best at what we do, and recognises a New Zealand business as leading the world. We now know that the service we deliver is the equal or better than anybody can experience anywhere else in the world, meaning we are delivering great results to our customers and their businesses. We will use this success to invest further into new and emerging Microsoft directions such as their cloud initiatives.”

This year, Microsoft introduced, for the first time, the Microsoft Country Partner of the Year category. This award recognises partners at the country level that have demonstrated business excellence and strong relationships delivering Microsoft solutions. Intergen won the New Zealand category based on its dedication to Microsoft technologies and the innovative solutions created for its customers.

“For us this award is a real affirmation of the strength of our relationship with Microsoft, and it is our hope that it further shows our customers how their organisations can benefit by being brought into such a strong partnership,” says Tony Stewart, Managing Director for Intergen.

“We are extremely proud of our Microsoft relationship and recognise that it is central to everything we do. To win this kind of award is a major endorsement of our work and recognition of a key part of our strategy – we do well when Microsoft does well. Intergen has always been exclusively dedicated to Microsoft technologies, and it is extremely rewarding for us to see the growing depth and breadth of our relationship with Microsoft and the ongoing successes we both achieve when working so closely together on so many levels.”


Winners and finalists will be recognised at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2010, the company’s premier annual event for industry partners, being held July 12-15 in Washington, D.C. A complete list of categories, winners and finalists, including category descriptions, is available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/wpc.

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