TechWeb's InformationWeek and Interop Announce Finalists for Best of Interop Las Vegas 2008

InformationWeek, the leading multimedia business technology brand, and Interop, the leading global business technology event series, announced the finalists for Best of Interop Las Vegas 2008. Interop Las Vegas 2008 will be held April 27-May 2, 2008 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

Best of Interop recognizes some of the world's most innovative technologies across eight major categories. Nearly 200 companies submitted products for consideration by the judges. Entering companies completed an online submission form that covered everything from general information about the product to how the product advances the state of business computing. The panel of judges was made up of award-winning editors from InformationWeek, who selected the products they believe have the greatest potential to impact and advance business technology efficiencies. The awards ceremony will be held Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 4:00 p.m.

"The competition was tough with the increase in exhibitors this year," Lenny Heymann, Interop General Manager said. "The finalists should be proud of their accomplishments. We congratulate them and look forward to seeing who the winners will be."

"Interop has had a long history as the place where important technology is vetted as ready for enterprise use, and the Best of Interop highlights that spirit by showcasing the top product innovations in our industry," said Art Wittmann, Editor of InformationWeek.

  Finalists for each category are as follows:

  Data Center and Storage:
  Imation Corp.                  Imation SSD PRO 7000
  Foundry Networks               BigIron RX Module
  Mellanox Technologies          ConnectX IB


  Infrastructure:
  Cisco                          Cisco Nexus 7000 Series
  Microsoft Corporation          Windows Server 2008
  VMware                         WMware VDI

  Network and Application Performance Optimization:
  Riverbed Technology, Inc.      Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS™) 5.0
  Cisco                          Cisco Wide Area Application Engine (WAE)
                                 674 and Cisco WAAS v4.1
  Coyote Point Systems           Equalizer VLB


  Network Management, Software and Services:
  Panduit Corp.                  PanView iQ
  AirWave Wireless               AirWave Wireless Management Suite 6
  Splunk                         The Splunk Platform (including Splunk 3.2
                                 and Splunk for Windows)


  Security:
  Webroot                        Webroot E-Mail Security SaaS
  IronPort                       Iron Port S-Series
  Palo Alto Networks             PA-4000 Series Next Generation Firewall
                                 with PANOS v2.0


  Software:
  Microsoft (with Novell)        Microsoft Hyper-V / SUSE Linux Xen
                                 Hypervisor
  Alcatel-Lucent                 OmniTouch Advanced Communications Server
                                 (ACS)
  spigit                         Ideaspigit


  VoIP and Collaboration:
  Siemens Communications         OpenScape Video
  WebEx Communications, Inc.,
  now part of Cisco              WebEx PCNow 4.0
  Mitel                          Mitel Communication Suite


  Wireless and Mobility:
  Motorola, Enterprise
  Mobility Business              RFS6000 Wireless LAN Switch
  AirMagnet Inc.                 AirMagnet Analyzer and Survey Suite for
                                 802.11n
  MRV Communications             10GE TereScope™ Optical Wireless System

In addition to the eight category winners, there will be three special awards: Grand Prize Winner, Best StartUp, and the Green Award. The Green Award is a new award for Best of Interop and recognizes eco-friendly products. For the Best StartUp category, the vendor must have existed as an independent company for two years or less. The judges will determine the overall Grand Prize Winner from the pool of category winners. For more information on Best of Interop categories and awards, visit http://www.bestofinterop.com/.

About InformationWeek (http://www.informationweek.com/)

InformationWeek is the leading multimedia business technology brand online sites, magazine, events and research helping CIOs and IT decision makers connect the "why" to the "how" through expert and peer based content. Through its cross-media platform, InformationWeek provides editorial content developed by both journalists and CIO and IT peers delivered when and how they want it, 24/7. For technology marketers, InformationWeek offers a dynamic portfolio of products to engage and align with the largest, most influential buying audience in the market. This means marketing solutions that target broad audiences (reach), as well as media programs organized by content themes and specific audience segments (composition). InformationWeek's audience of more than 2 million buyers includes CIOs, IT executives and business managers across all industries, job titles, company sizes and global borders.

About Interop® (http://www.interop.com/)

Interop® drives the adoption of technology, providing knowledge and insight to help IT and corporate decision-makers achieve business success. Part of TechWeb's family of global brands, Interop is the leading business technology event series. Through in-depth educational programs, workshops, real-world demonstrations and live technology implementations in its unique InteropNet and InteropLabs programs, Interop provides the forum for the most powerful innovations and solutions the industry has to offer. As the meeting place for the global business technology community, upcoming Interop events include Interop Moscow 2008, April 23-24, 2008, Forum Hall, Moscow ; Interop Tokyo 2008, June 9-13, 2008, Mukahari Messe, Tokyo , Interop Sao Paulo , August 12-14, 2008, Transamerica Expo Center, and Interop New York, September 15-19, 2008 Javits Convention Center, New York City . For more information about these events, visit http://www.interop.com/.

About TechWeb (http://techweb.com/aboutus)

TechWeb, the global leader in business technology communities, is an innovative business focused on serving the needs of technology decision-makers and marketers worldwide. TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed media brands in the business technology market. Today, more than 13.3 million business technology professionals actively engage in our communities created around our global face-to-face events including Interop, Web 2.0, Black Hat and VoiceCon; online resources like the TechWeb Network, Light Reading, Intelligent Enterprise, InformationWeek.com, bMighty.com, and Financial Technology brands; and the market leading, award-winning InformationWeek Magazine, TechNet Magazine, MSDN Magazine and Wall Street & Technology magazines. TechWeb also provides end-to-end services ranging from next- generation performance marketing, custom media, research, and analyst services.

TechWeb is a division of United Business Media, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

SOURCE: United Business Media

CONTACT: Scott Vaughan, Vice President, Marketing Services of TechWeb,
+1-929-223-3662, svaughan@techweb.com; or Natalia Wodecki, Public Relations
Manager of Interop, +1-415-947-6762, nwodecki@techweb.com, both for United
Business Media

Web site: http://techweb.com/aboutus
http://www.informationweek.com/
http://www.interop.com/
http://www.bestofinterop.com/