The Windows Middle East Awards ceremony took place during a winner's
lunch on the eve of the first day of Gitex 2001. From our November issue’s
shortlist of 50 nominations, 21 companies were selected for their outstanding
contributions to the IT world over the past 12 months.
By category, here’s a rundown of the best of the best...
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Best PC
Winner: Acer Veriton 7200
The last year has seen more new processors, systems and innovations
in the PC market than any other.
In terms of performance and quality, the award for Best PC was given
to the Veriton 7200. Featuring a Pentium 4 processor, the device
was superbly built for business.
As well as excelling our benchmarks in terms of performance and
outrunning other devices when it came to speed tests, the usability
made the Veriton ideal for the demanding office.
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Best Notebook Innovation
Winner: Compaq N400C
Without the tireless work of innovators and cutting edge thinkers
progress is impossible.
That is why the Windows User team decided to give an award for Notebook
Innovation.
Despite being one of the most closely fought categories, the Compaq
Evo N400c came out as the clear winner.
Compaq realised that colourful cases no longer constitute innovation
and in the proprietary Multiport it has a genuine technology innovation.
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Best Performance Notebook
Winner: Toshiba Tecra 8200
The notebook which offered the best performance this year was the
Toshiba Tecra 8200.
2002 has seen Toshiba invest heavily in wireless technology and
the 8200 was the result. A built-in Wi-Fi antenna makes this a road
warrior's dream.
However, the Wi-Fi feature was far from a gimmick — performance
was outstanding across the board.
The 1GHz clock speed now available on notebooks is surely a contributing
factor in the rise of notebook popularity.
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Best Business Peripheral
Winner: Genius ColorPage HR-7
The essential requirements of a business peripheral are good long-term
value and excellent performance.
It was an abundance of those attributes that made the Genius ColorPage
HR-7 a winner.
Despite being priced towards the budget end of the scanner market,
the feature set and software bundle will interest high-end users.
The built-in transparency adapter is one area that impressed the
Winlabs team.
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Best Consumer Peripheral
Winner: Creative DTT 3500
The essential requirements of a business peripheral are good long-term
value and excellent performance.
It was an abundance of those attributes that made the Genius ColorPage
HR-7 a winner.
Despite being priced towards the budget end of the scanner market,
the feature set and software bundle will interest high-end users.
The built-in transparency adapter is one area that impressed the
Winlabs team.
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Best Storage
Winner: IBM 1GB Microdrive
Demands for large storage capacities, while retaining a portable
form factor have seen many interesting solutions in the past few
years.
Few more so than this year’s storage products of the year:
the IBM microdrive.
A miracle of modern engineering the microdrive is actually a fully
functioning hard drive built into a CompactFlash card.
With a 1GB capacity, the plug-and-play functionality make this an
ideal solution for notebook users.
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Best Laser Printer
Winner: HP 4550
The demands of the twenty first century office require all products
to offer a range of functions rather than a limited single feature.
No product, in the past twelve months represents this better than
this years Laser Printer of the year: the HP 4550.
Featuring a built-in Web browser and an intelligent Internet functionality
it is more than just a laser printer. The 4550 is actually able
to order supplies online and request repairs all by itself.
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Best Consumer Printer
Winner: Canon S800
With a combination of advanced technologies such as 2400 x 1200
dpi, 1/6 density photo inks, new High Colour inks with more than
20 years light fastness, and advanced Microfine Droplet Technology™,
the Bubble Jet S800 can deliver exceptional quality printouts to
rival traditional silver halide photos.
With new and improved high frequency head technology the Bubble
Jet S800 is the fastest printer in its class printing a full A4
photo in approximately two minutes and traditional sized photos
in under a minute.
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Best Business Inkjet Printer
Winner: Epson 2000p
Although the technologies used in a business inkjet are essentially
the same, the user demands are very different.
The winner of the Best Business InkJet award goes to the Epson Stylus
Photo 2000p.
Perhaps lacking the speed of certain competitors the ability to
print images, and in particular photographs, to the highest quality
make the 2000P a great investment for businesses.
As with all Epson printers the emphasis is on the accuracy of prints.
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Best Monitor
Winner: Samsung 240T
Despite the quality shown from all the manufacturers who submitted
monitors for review this year, it was easy to offer the monitor
of the year award to the 240T from Samsung.
A large price tag is justified the first time you set eyes on the
huge 24” LCD panel.
As well as providing a large viewable area features such as a picture-in-picture
option, zoom and pan and a resolution of up to 1900 x 1200 make
this a high-class solution.
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Best Motherboard
Winner: FIC AD11
The motherboard, as has been written so many times before, is the
foundation upon which the whole PC is built.
This is why the Winlabs team felt it neccassary to include a category
just to reward the devices we have seen.
The eventual winner was the AD11 mainboard, from First International
Computers.
Built to accommodate the AMD Athlon processor, the AD11 offers a
theoretical clock speed of 1.66GHz when overclocked.
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Best Component
Winner: Creative Audigy Platinum eX
For its first new range of sound cards in over three years, Creative
had to come up with something special — and that is exactly
what it delivered in the Audigy Platinum eX.
A new sound processor and a new way of approaching PC audio is what
Creative have presented.
As software developers learn to produce effects for the Audigy system
3D gaming is sure to benefit from the Component of the Year.
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Best Handheld
Winner: Nokia 9210
In the 9210 from Nokia, performance met expectations in what turned
out to be a feature rich handheld device.
The 9210 is certain to become an icon of twenty first century Arabia.
The buzzword of convergence finally found its marquee product in
the device that delivered the dream of telephony with great software
in a single device.
A colour screen and a QWERTY keyboard in particular impressed the
team.
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Best Bilingual Software
Winner: Microsoft Office XP
Microsoft’s untiring efforts and commitment to the cause of
empowering the Middle East has not escaped the notice of the Windows
User team.
We found Microsoft Office XP to be the best bi-lingual (Arabic/English)
software developed, so far, for the region’s IT users.
Office XP in Arabic has empowered the Arab user by giving him access
to technology in the language that he is most familiar with.
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Best Arabic Business Software
Winner: Sakhr Arab DOX Management System
When the Gulf craved Arabic software, Sakhr consistently rose to
the occasion by developing them for clients.
This time, they have outdone their innovations with the Sakhr Arab
DOX Management System, which was Arabic Business Software in the
region. Sakhr has integrated its own OCR, keyword extractor, summariser,
search engine, client/server and Internet/Intranet technologies
to give ArabDox that award-winning combination.
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Best Bilingual Internet Solution
Winner: ZFP Information Technology
Zuhair Fayez Partnership Information technology has brought 12
years of experience to bear on its products and services, and has
done exceptionally well, this last year, in developing bilingual
Web solutions and software for specific sectors within the Middle
East business industry, especially in Saudi Arabia.
In recognition of its contributions, Windows User has awarded ZFP-IT
the prize for developing the Best Bilingual Internet Solutions.
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Best Arabic Consumer Software
Winner: Al Ariss School Curriculum
Any efforts made in the field of education, primarily to help students
use technology more effectively to reduce the burden on their backs,
deserves praise.
Al Ariss School Curriculum has won the award for the Best Arabic
Consumer Software for taking the needs of their students into consideration
and making texts for all subjects available on CDs, thereby, eliminating
the need for children to carry books to school everyday.
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Best Arabic Internet Portal
Winner: www.ajeeb.com
Sakhr has taken giant leaps this year in technology by developing,
not just bi-lingual software, but also content on Ajeeb.com,
the biggest and most comprehensive Middle East-based portal.
Its unique free services for users such as English to Arabic translation,
a selection of online dictionaries for bi-directional translation
in five languages and availability of Islamic software, have enabled
Windows User to declare Ajeeb.com the best Arabic Internet site.
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Best Online Arabic Content
Winner: BBC Arabic
And the award for the best Web site with Arabic content goes to
the same team that was given the ITP Business.com award last year
for the best Arabic news Web site.
Congratulations BBC Arabic, for providing the Arab region with the
most comprehensive coverage of world news in the language that they
love and understand best.
Windows User applauds your efforts and urge you to carry on.
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| INDIVIDUAL AWARDS FOR SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT |
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Outstanding Hardware Innovation
Winner: DTK
With 20 years of pioneering history behind DTK Computer, it is
not surprising that DTK Computer has crossed another milestone in
the field of technology; this time, by coming up with the best e-class
solution.
With multi-media interactive learning software (MILS) that enhances
the standard of education and improves the effectiveness of teaching
and learning, it has taken education out of the conventional classroom
to the e-classroom.
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Outstanding Contribution to IT in the Middle East
Winner: Intel
Intel has encouraged increasing use of the Internet in the region
by investing substantial capital in Arabia.com,
one of the most recognised and popular portals in the Middle East.
In recognition of the company’s outstanding efforts in the
global chip market and its popularity in the Middle East, Windows
User awards it a prize for its outstanding contribution to information
technology in the region.
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