Technology 'Oscar' winners announced

05-05-2006

by Maxim Kelly

The winners of the 2006 Information and Communications Technology Excellence Awards were announced on Thursday night in Dublin.

Known as the Oscars of the information communication technology sector, the ICT Excellence awards, now in their sixth year, attracted over 100 entries from companies and organisations nationwide.

The real celebrities at the swanky Burlington Hotel awards ceremony were Samir Naji of Horizon Group who won best ICT Industry Person of the Year, Barbara White of SIAC Construction, who was named ICT Person of the Year, and sales professional of 2006 Mark McKeon of H-P.

National Irish Bank (NIB) and Mobhaile won the coveted ICT Projects of the year awards, in the private sector and public sector respectively.

NIB won the award for its successful integration of separate banking platforms when Danske Bank bought NIB and Northern Bank last year. The integration of differing technologies was complicated by different Euro and Sterling systems and the fact that the two banks operate in different regulatory jurisdictions. The criterion for the award, sponsored by Entropy, was delivery of the most cost-effective application of business technology. NIB was up against fellow finalists Lan Communications and MJ Flood Technology for the award.

The Local Government Computer Services Board's easy-to-use online community portal Mobhaile won the public sector award which had the same criterion as the private sector category above. The LGCSB was shortlisted for the Capgemini-sponsored prize alongside Damovo and Original Solutions.

ICT Ireland, the association which represents the high tech sector within industry group Ibec, won an Excellence Award for its ICT Champions Programme. Over 50 technology companies participate in the programme which informs second level students about careers in technology. ICT Ireland sends tech ambassadors working in the sector into schools to discuss their careers as part of their drive to make the tech sector an attractive career choice. Version One claimed first prize in a separate category for best use of technology in education and training.

The most outstanding project based on open source technology was won by Soft Telecom who was up against Omegasoft and Version One Software.

Voxpilot bagged the mobile technology excellence award. Computer Control Solutions and Graham Technology were also shortlisted for their applications of mobile communications technology.

Ergo Services won the best systems integration company category, while the web development company of the year title was claimed by TextHelp Systems. Other web frontrunners were Strata 3 and Magico.

The judges awarded CMS Peripherals the distributor of the year top spot while PC Cubed topped the specialist distributor of the year category.

Oracle Ireland came out as the best ICT company to work for in 2006 while Vodafone won the best telecommunications company of the year and Smart Telecom topped the best ICT company category. Sage was bestowed with an excellence award for technology marketing.