Finalist ScaleOut StateServer
ScaleOut StateServer solves the problem of Web-farm session state by using a network load-balancing style of workload data caching. The need to store session state in the database is often a limiting factor in building highly scalable Web applications because access to the session state increases the application's database I/O requirements. ScaleOut StateServer provides a high-speed, in-memory cache that you can easily scale upward by adding StateServers. ScaleOut StateServer supports ASP.NET 2.0 and also provides Cached Data Accessor APIs, letting applications programmatically cache other types of data in StateServer's in memory storage. In addition, asynchronous event handling lets applications handle session and event timeouts.
Finalist DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET
DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET provides-heterogeneous database access for .NET database applications.The DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET data provider can connect to Oracle, IBM DB2, and Sybase databases in addition to SQL Server. The product is a 100-percent managed .NET data provider, which eliminates the need for any additional client components. Plus, being a completely managed provider gives DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET better performance than other partially managed solutions because you don't need slow context switches between managed and unmanaged code. DataDirect Connect for ADO .NET supports Visual Studio 2005 and ADO.NET 2.0.