Computing Awards for Excellence: Networking and Communications Supplier of the Year shortlist

Cisco

Over the past year, Cisco has launched several new products, including Cisco TelePresence, which has generated $150m (£73.5m) in savings on travel expenses. By using Cisco unified communications, Lorien has cut its annual telecommunications expenditure in half.

ConSentry Networks

ConSentry Networks has a portfolio of 125 customers, including BT Radianz and SunGard, and 20 per cent of the orders it receives are repeated. ConSentry’s LanShield platforms allow companies to control who comes on their local area network and what they are able to do.

iPass

Remote access provider iPass introduced a flat-rate offering giving businesses unlimited access to iPass connectivity services throughout the world. By meeting customers’ requirements, iPass has achieved a retention rate of more than 99 per cent.

LifeSize Communications

Videoconferencing supplier LifeSize Communications is saving more than $550,000 (£268,000) a year by using its own Room application. The product is designed to accommodate large, geographically distributed organisations in multiple locations. The group also offers LifeSize Team for smaller remote project groups.

Neos Networks

Telecoms company Neos Networks has secured several major new contracts this year, including a £2.9m deal with Learning Network South East (Lense). Over the past 18 months, Neos has trebled the number of national operations centre staff that have skills in data and transmission.

Research in Motion

This year, Research in Motion’s (RIM’s) worldwide subscriber base reached nine million, taking the company to its first $1bn (£500m) quarter, with 18.1 per cent share of the market, according to Gartner. More than 70 per cent of RIM’s customers, including West Yorkshire Police, now use more BlackBerry applications than just email.

Riverbed

RiOs 4.0, the latest software release in the Riverbed Technology Optimisation System, applies a variety of new optimisation techniques to improve the performance of normal encrypted HTTP applications. In a recent survey, Riverbed received a customer satisfaction score of 10 out of 10 from 41 per cent of respondents.

Vocera

According to independent studies carried out in hospitals in Australia and the US, the Vocera Communication System saves lives by speeding up the communication process by up to five times. A 2006 trial at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Australia showed that the system has saved AUS$337,500 (£147,500).