Vote now for your top suppliers

Which companies deserve to win one of the top awards at our prestigious presentation evening? You decide…

We want your help in deciding the winners of some of the most prestigious prizes in our 13^th annual Computing Awards for Excellence.

This year, we are looking to recognise the best IT suppliers in the UK , and the top recruitment consultancies.

In both these areas, the people with the most relevant experience to determine the winners are our readers – the IT experts that deal with these companies on a daily basis.

So we would like you to vote on each of the following categories, with the winners to be announced at the awards ceremony on 16 November at the Battersea Park Events Arena in London.

Voting is easy – simply visit our awards web site at www.computing.co.uk/awards and click on the ‘Vote Now’ button. The details of the shortlisted entries are shown below – we look forward to receiving your votes.

Business Software Supplier of the Year

Appsense

Appsense provides products to help improve system performance, management and security, The company was shortlisted for the improvements and innovations made to its applications in the past 12 months, along with a testimonial from customer Scotia Gas Networks, who installed the software to support 1500 users across 60 sites within six months.

CGram Software

CGram provides Linux-based accounting, sales and supply chain software for small and medium-sized businesses. Benson Exhaust Components in Manchester runs its business using CGram, and recently completed an upgrade of the system, improving its operations as a result.

F-Secure

Anti-virus specialist F-Secure helps companies such as Barclays and Tesco to protect their IT systems from malicious attacks. Its products include network encryption and desktop firewall systems, and it claims to have been the first anti-virus vendor to detect the Cabir mobile phone virus.

LANDesk Software

LANDesk offers systems management software for desktop, server and mobile devices, covering functions such as help desk, security, remote control and asset management. Honeywell Europe reduced the number of times help desk staff needed to visit users by 75 per cent as a result of introducing the software.

Mindjet

Mindjet launched its MindManager software in November last year; a desktop application that allows users to create and organise ideas using electronic ‘mind maps’. The system offers a digital alternative to flipcharts and whiteboards for collecting knowledge across an organisation. RAF Strike Command uses the system for planning operations and researching long-term military strategy.

Njini

Njini is a UK startup that provides tools to help manage unstructured data. One banking organisation used the system to analyse one petabyte of unstructured data, and identified duplicated data in a ratio of more than 50 to one, cutting its storage needs and making significant costs savings.

Sophos

IT security software provider Sophos released its latest products for the corporate market in February, including a range of new innovations to help companies improve virus protection and detection. The company has ranked second for customer satisfaction in Computing’s ImageTrak survey for two years running.

IT Services Supplier of the Year

BlackSpider Technologies

BlackSpider provides managed security services to help companies deal with spam, email monitoring, encryption and virus protection, with a number of innovations introduced in the last year. Customer Johnson Matthey reduced the amount of time spent on email administration from more than four hours per day to five minutes using the supplier’s services.

LinuxIT

LinuxIT offers independent training, consultancy and support for open-source technologies, and also works with organisations such as the United Nations to promote Linux certification in Asia. The company helps its customers to understand where open-source software products can improve their infrastructure.

LogicaCMG

LogicaCMG has worked on some of the highest-profile contracts in the UK, and has 40 global outsourcing delivery centres. The company developed and supported the onboard software for the Cassini-Huygens space mission that successfully landed a probe on Titan, Saturn’s’ largest moon, earlier this year.

Parity

Parity offers its customers consultancy, managed services, implementation and project management capabilities. In a £4m contract with the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the company is helping to prepare for the MoD’s new corporate infrastructure, a major migration project covering 680 sites worldwide.

Savvis

Savvis provides managed IT services through a network of 24 data centres around the world. The company supports the web site of the Food Standards Agency, which experienced a 60-fold increase in traffic in February during the Sudan-1 food scare that caused hundreds of products to be recalled from supermarket shelves.

ServiceTec

ServiceTec is a managed service supplier with clients including Alliance & Leicester, Jaguar, Inland Revenue and Virgin. The company also provides specialised services for airport ticketing and security, and was selected by the UK Immigration Service for its iris recognition system at UK airports.

Networking and Communications Supplier of the Year

APC

APC provides systems to help manage the power and cooling needs of major data centres and networks. As companies have turned to technologies such as blades to create high-density data centres, APC systems are helping to ensure reliable operations. Hosting provider Globix used APC equipment to manage its 19,500 square feet of data centre space.

Aruba Networks

Aruba provides secure wireless local area network systems to support companies as diverse as Google, University College London Hospitals (UCLH) trust, Amazon.com and American Airlines. UCLH uses Aruba networks to allow mobile access to electronic patient records in a 7,000 user network across eight hospitals.

BT

In the past year, BT has continued its plan to transform the company from its traditional UK telecoms background to offer global IT and networking services, achieving sales of more than £8bn for its networked IT services. Its 21^st Century Network programme will make the UK the first country to have a single, fully IP-enabled, integrated telecommunications infrastructure.

Cisco Systems

Cisco is one of the largest networking providers in the world, and last year launched its most powerful router, the CRS-1. In the past 12 months the company has worked on major implementations such as British Airways, Lloyds TSB, Telewest, the Scottish Executive, Ordnance Survey and radio station group GWR.

Research in Motion

The provider of the BlackBerry handheld device reached its thee millionth subscriber during 2005. Some 45,000 companies worldwide have adopted the mobile email system. Addenbrooke’s hospital introduced BlackBerry devices to give its organ transplant team rapid access to patient records, helping to improve patient care.

Vanco

Vanco is a ‘virtual network operator’, providing customers with a one-stop shop for all their networking needs covering a broad range of technologies, and manages networks in 142 countries. In the past year, the company has doubled profits, increased sales by 35 per cent, and signed major deals with companies such as British Airways, Lloyds TSB, Siemens and Virgin.

Business Hardware Supplier of the Year

Aventail

Aventail provides technology for secure virtual private networks (VPNs). Companies such as DuPont, Sanyo and TNT use the company’s products to provide secure remote access to IT systems around the world. DuPont says it has saved over $1m per year using the supplier’s products.

Baraccuda Networks

Baraccuda offers a hardware-based spam firewall to help companies reduce the problem of unwanted junk emails. Insurance company Inghams used the product to eliminate 323,000 spam emails per day, which had been costing the firm £1000 per week in IT support. The supplier shipped more than 20,000 units since opening a European office in July last year.

Hitachi Data Systems

HDS provides storage systems designed for high-end and medium-sized company infrastructures. Its latest storage platform provides an environment to manage multivendor environments and helps to reduce training costs and improve efficiency. The system has been well-rated by a number of industry analysts.

Lifesize Communications

Lifesize offers high-definition videoconferencing technology. In April this year the company launched its latest suite of products to try to improve the quality of global video communications for its customers. In the UK, the supplier has partnered with five local resellers to deliver its products.

StorageTek

Storage specialist StorageTek launched its IntelliStore archiving system in June this year, its first to combine disk and tape platforms. The product allows customers to categorise data and create rules to automate the handling of information throughout the archiving process. The company also claims to have introduced the world’s first 4Gb disk platform.

Recruitment Consultancy of the Year

Advanced Resource Managers

Hampshire-based ARM maintains a pool of over 190,000 registered applicants on a regularly updated database. The firm provides a range of services, covering contract and permanent work, consultancy and payroll services. Customers include Smiths Aerospace, Kraft Foods and Lockheed Martin.

Harvey Nash

Harvey Nash employs over 2000 people in 25 countries. The firm provides recruitment services for technical staff, IT and business executives, interim managers and offshore outsourcing, with customers including Motorola, Haringey Council, EasyGroup and Equitable Life.

Huxley Associates

Huxley originally specialised in providing IT recruitment services to the financial services market, but has since broadened out to other sectors. The firm has built up a database of more than 500,000 candidates. Customers include the London Stock Exchange, Wall Street Systems and MYOB UK.

Modis

Modis provides IT and engineering staffing services, growing its European division by 38 per cent in 2004. The firm provides, contract, permanent and project recruitment services to customers such as Haringey Council, Nestor Healthcare and Computacenter.

MSB International

MSB provides recruitment services to customers in 22 countries, with an industry focus on sectors such as healthcare, financial services and retail. The company’s business model aims to help clients speed up recruitment times and cut the cost per hire. Customers include Unisys, Accenture and JP Morgan Chase.

Penta Consulting

In the past 12 months, Penta has doubled its sales to £30m and increased profitability by 1000 per cent. The company specialises in the IT and telecoms sectors providing contractor recruitment, permanent placements and executive search services to customers in 10 countries.