World beating: New Zealand’s best IT providers recognised globally

Auckland-based Kinetics Group is a global winner after taking out a supreme award for Small Business Partner of the Year at the annual Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.  At the same conference Datacom won the Country Partner of the Year award for New Zealand.  

Three other Microsoft New Zealand partners;  NV Interactive, Enlighten Designs, and Intergen received Asia Pacific regional awards for their respective wins in the Innovative Technology, Collaboration and Content, and Public Sector categories.

The annual awards, held in Houston on July 10, honoured Microsoft partners around the globe for helping businesses grow and push the envelope in areas such as cloud services, workforce mobility, and in bringing the power of connected devices into the hands of employees and business owners of all types.  This year’s winners have  significantly helped  businesses move into an era of ‘work anywhere’ in a way that suits today’s blended world of consumer and business.   

Guided by their motto ‘we make cloud easy for any business’, Kinetics Group won the coveted Small Business Partner of the Year award after  taking it at the local New Zealand level in five of the last six years.  The three finalists that Kinetics Group beat were from Ecuador and the US.

Andrew Hunt, Kinetics Group Managing Director says it’s very humbling to be recognised internationally by Microsoft for its dedication to service and innovation.
“We’re always focused on lifting the bar for each and every one of our customers, irrespective of their size. We’ve always seen our job as being to innovate with them to strengthen their businesses.  It’s what we exist for, no more and no less, just business as usual.  So it’s a huge surprise and an overwhelming honour to be recognised as being on a par with the best Microsoft partners around the world.

“In fact, it’s because of previous partner conferences that we’re successful. Learning about Office 365 cloud computing, comparing notes with other partners and developing our ideas has really guided us on how we think about cloud computing for small businesses. It’s great that learning and applying these cloud computing lessons for our customer’s has meant we’ve won this amazing global award,” Mr Hunt says.

Datacom’s New Zealand Country Partner of the Year award recognises its long standing reputation as a client-focused, IT service provider.  Datacom set itself apart in the past year by delivering solutions to commercial and government clients in areas ranging from Windows 8 app development through to hosted productivity solutions and Microsoft New Zealand’s largest ever Customer Relations Management project.

In addition to making technology work for its business customers, Datacom has broken new ground in training and promoting Windows applications to the wider IT community including developer workshops for over 800 students across New Zealand. "We're pleased to receive the New Zealand Country partner of the year award as an acknowledgement that we continuously push technology boundaries to create and deliver innovative services for the tangible benefit of our customers,” Datacom NZ Greg Davidson says.

Datacom was also announced Platinum Partner for Cloud Services at the conference.

Microsoft NZ managing drector Paul Muckleston says New Zealand has an outstanding network of high-calibre technology partners and that seeing them recognised on the world stage is a clear endorsement of this high standard.

“We congratulate all Kiwi winners and finalists of the Worldwide Partner Awards, and are particularly proud that a New Zealand business has been recognised as the best Microsoft Small Business Partner in the world.”

“Kinetics Group’s ability to rapidly grow their business by providing tailored solutions for small businesses is great to see. They have really gone deep to create new customer offerings that leverage all the benefits of our global public cloud offerings such as Office 365, and have wrapped around services and consulting perfectly designed for New Zealand small businesses.” Mr Muckleston says.

The following companies were also recognised:

• Intergen was an international finalist in the Microsoft Public Sector, Public Safety/National Security Partner of the Year category, winning at the Asia Pacific regional level for this same award
• NV Interactive received the Microsoft Asia Pacific Innovative Technology Partner of the Year Award
• Enlighten Designs was awarded the Microsoft Asia Pacific Content and Collaboration Partner of the Year Award

“Our customers are absolutely thrilled that their Microsoft solutions have been acknowledged as best in class. The Enlighten team believes the APAC award is a reflection of the commitment and investment that Enlighten continues to make in SharePoint, delivering exceptional outcomes to our customers,” says Damon Kelly, Enlighten Design Chief Executive Officer.

This year, there were 45 global award winners that celebrated each core partner competency, including cloud technology, Windows 8, and Microsoft Office and SharePoint applications, as well as entrepreneurial spirit, citizenship and sales excellence. More than 3,000 entries were collected from more than 100 countries; the award finalists and winners were selected from nominations based on their commitment to customers, their solutions’ market impact and exemplary use of Microsoft technologies.

A complete list of categories, winners and finalists, including category descriptions, is available here.