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!

Continue on Page 2