TORONTO — It was a big night for John Kvasnic and his team at Toronto-based solution provider Navantis Inc . The company won four Microsoft Impact Awards including the prestigious Microsoft Choice Award – the final award of the evening.
Kvasnic said that he was honoured and that it was hard to believe a night like this one after starting his company 15 years ago in an attic. Kvasnic credited his staff for the victories in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner of the Year, Software Development Partner of the Year, and Unified Communications Innovation Partner of the Year awards. “I’m thankful that I work with 330 people who are all smarter than me,” Kvasnic said of his team at Navantis.
Navantis was not the only solution provider to win four Impact Awards; Itergy of Montreal also took home four first place finishes for Desktop Partner of the Year, Identity & Security Partner of the Year, Midmarket Solution Provider Partner of the Year, and Server Platform Partner of the Year awards.
Company president and CEO Ralph Loewen said it was great working with Microsoft Canada staff and he knew that betting on the Microsoft stack would be successful.
In one of the more hotly contested awards of the night, Ingram Micro Canada beat out rival Tech Data Canada for Authorized Distribution Partner of the Year.
Microsoft Canada had 40 Impact awards and two new ones were created for the distribution buying groups VentureTech Network from Ingram Micro and TechSelect from Tech Data. The TechSelect award went to Ernie Sherman of Harris Computers of Ottawa, while the VTN award was presented to 360 Visibility Inc.
Microsoft Canada president Eric Gales talked about the importance of teamwork at the 9th annual Impact Awards, held this year at Toronto’s historic Distillery District, and the many winners and runners-up did exactly that by building teams that not just worked with clients but with other channel partners as well.
The evening’s guest co-host was Robyn Benincasa, a fire-fighter from San Diego that won the Eco-Challenge Borneo adventure race. Benincasa described her life and passion for adventure racing and how important teamwork it to not just winning but finishing grueling seven to 10-day non-stop competitions through jungles, mountains and waterways.
Other multiple award winners include: CDN Top 100 Solution Provider Softchoice captured the Software Asset Management Partner of the Year, Volume Licensing Partner of the Year, and Exceptional Sales Management Partner of the Year prizes. Ideaca Knowledge Services who won two awards: Microsoft Dynamics ERP Partner of the Year and Windows Azure Platform SI Partner of the Year. Digiflare also won two awards: Digital Marketing Partner of the Year and Mobility Business-to-Consumer Application Partner of the Year. Winnipeg’s Broadview Networks also won two awards but they shared the IAMCP Canada Partnership Award with Ottawa’s Orangutech. Broadview also won for Marketing Innovation Partner of the Year.
The rest of the evening’s winners are: QLogitek for Application Integration Partner of the Year; ObjectSharp for Application Lifecycle Management Partner of the Year; Infusion for Business Intelligence Partner of the Year; DataBind Inc. for Content Management Partner of the Year; Dapasoft for Data Platform Partner of the Year;; SherWeb for Hosting Partner of the Year; Prophix Software for Independent Software Vendor Partner of the Year; Ctc TrainCanada for Learning Competency Partner of the Year; Vortex Connect for Mobility Business-to-Business Application Partner of the Year; Stealth.com Inc. for OEM Hardware System Building Partner of the Year; Concept Interactive Inc. for Portals and Collaboration Partner of the Year; Arbutus Solutions for Project and Portfolio Management Partner of the Year; CMS Consulting Inc. won for Systems Management Partner of the Year; Dell Canada won for Unified Communications Market Acceleration Partner of the Year; Groupe Access took home the award for Virtualization Partner of the Year; Nmedia Solutions Inc. bested all for Web Development Partner of the Year; the Online Services Partner of the Year award went to Fully Managed; there was no surprise when Compugen Inc. won the Sustainability Partner of the Year award for its Green4Good program; MediaValet won the Windows Azure Platform ISV Partner of the Year award; the title for Community Leadership Partner of the Year went to Dolphin Digital Technologies Inc.; the Customer Experience Partner of the Year prize went to Altus Dynamics; and finally the Microsoft Canada & HP Frontline Partnership Partner of the Year award went to AMA Inc.
