Executive Summary:
For our 2008 Editors' Best awards, Windows IT Pro editors have talked to hundreds of vendors, attended dozens of product demos, and tried out and reviewed products in the Windows market to find the best offerings of the past year in 15 categories, including Product of the Year, Breakthrough Product, and Special Achievement. If you're looking for a particular product to maximize the ROI of your IT infrastructure, start here. |
The Windows IT Pro awards recognize products
and services that our editors and contributors have
selected as standing out from the rest in more than a dozen
categories. Our judging team narrowed the list down to dozens
of finalists, then winnowed that list even further. After some
heated discussions and testy email exchanges, we arrived at
those you see here: the Windows IT Pro awards
winners. All these products can help you do your job faster,
more efficiently, or more economically.
IT pros will undoubtedly debate some of our picks more
than others. Is the Apple iPhone worthy of a Special Achievement
award? Talk to a host of mobile phone executives as we did, and you’ll see
why it is—nearly all of them mentioned the iPhone when discussing where
smartphones in the enterprise are headed. And what about Google Docs, winner
of our Breakthrough Product award? Although most enterprises might not be using
hosted applications now, they soon will be: Microsoft is following Google’s lead in a push
to offer more online services through its Software + Services (S+S) strategy.
Speaking of Microsoft, Windows IT Pro Editorial and Strategy Director Karen Forster
devotes her IT Pro Perspective column to a discussion of the best Microsoft products
she’s seen and hands out awards for three worthy offerings from Redmond.
The following pages contain what we think are the best products on the market, but we
also know that you—Windows IT Pro’s readers—have your own opinions about which products
are worthy of recognition and which deserve a quick delete or spirited heave through
a nearby office window. We’ve created an awards category in the Windows IT
Pro online forums (www.windowsitpro.com), and we invite you to log on and share your
opinions of the good, the bad, and the spectacularly ugly products you’ve had the privilege
(or misfortune) to buy and use. If you think that our choices are misguided, feel free to log
on and give us a piece of your mind!
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