Microsoft Tech•Ed was a wild, jazzy, hot, humid affair this year in New Orleans, and our editors were in the spirit when they recognized this year's Best of Tech•Ed Award winners. These awards recognize Microsoft partners that offer innovative products and services in the marketplace. The judging panel—consisting of Windows IT Pro, SQL Server Magazine, DevProConnections Magazine, and SharePointPro Connections Magazine editors Michael Otey, Amy Eisenberg, Jason Bovberg, Sheila Molnar, and Zac Wiggy—narrowed an impressive field of nearly 300 submissions down to 46 finalists in 15 categories. Onsite in New Orleans, the team interviewed the finalists and evaluated the products to determine a final list of winners. As always, the three criteria for the judging process were strategic importance, competitive advantage, and value to customers. Show attendees also cast their votes to determine the winner of the prestigious Attendees' Pick Award.
It was a fun week in the Crescent City, capped off with a wonderful awards party at the Hard Rock Cafe in the French Quarter. We would like to congratulate our 2010 winners!
BACKUP & RECOVERY
Symantec—Backup Exec 2010
Symantec’s industry-standard Backup Exec 2010 backup-and-recovery solution wins this award thanks to the exciting new energy poured into version 2010 (the fastest-adopted version of the tool ever). With new integrated features such as data de-duplication, archiving, OST-based management features, and granular restore technology—all leveraging powerful Symantec technologies and teams—Backup Exec 2010 expands its horizons while becoming extremely user-friendly and community-aware.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
Dundas Data Visualization—Dundas Dashboard 2.0
Dundas is back with Dundas Dashboard 2.0! The company, well known for its wide array of components, came on strong with the new version of its new web-based platform for digital dashboard creation, integration, and delivery. This version—leveraging Silverlight 4.0 and offering OLAP capabilities, SharePoint integration, customization and extensibility, Dashflow-streamlined development, KPI mashups, and more—is sure to please the business intelligence community.
DATABASE ADMINISTRATION
Idera—Idera SQL Toolbox 1.0
Idera, a finalist last year with its fine Idera SQL admin toolset, wins this year with a cost-effective uber-toolset (SQL Toolbox) that includes the admin toolset (with its 24 tools, plus 3 more offerings—SQL Schema Compare, SQL Safe Lite, and SQL Virtual Database). The virtual database is a unique product that lets administrators recover data from backup files without doing a restore. DBAs can use that virtual database in as many ways as their imaginations allow—reporting, data extraction, data analysis, and more.
DATABASE DEVELOPMENT
Quest Software—Toad for SQL Server 4.6
Toad for SQL Server is the Swiss Army knife of development tools. This product won because it offers an incredibility wide range of functionality, including IntelliSense, Group Server query execute for running queries on multiple servers, an advanced SQL Optimizer to analyze alternative SQL statements, as well as server, database, and data-comparison tools.
