Global growth consulting company, Frost & Sullivan today hosted the 2007 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards which saw some of Asia’s up and coming regional players stealing the limelight. Historically dominated by the Japanese, Korean and South Asian, as well as Greater China players, traditions were broken this year with Asia’s new rising stars claiming some key honors at the Awards.

The first-time recipients who broke the rules include Malaysia’s incumbent operator, Telekom Malaysia, which took home the Service Provider of the Year award; Malaysia’s fastest growing mobile operator, DiGi, received the Wireless Service Provider of the Year award; pioneering virtual network operator, Vanco Asia Pacific, which was named Most Promising Service Provider of the Year; and Malaysia-based SME (small-medium enterprise) and 3G mobile applications and broadband telephony solutions developer, NGC Systems, for its revolutionary 3G video streaming application - Genico® 3G Pocketsports, which was named the Most Promising Innovative Application/Product of the Year.

This marks the first year that any Malaysian company has received recognition at this regional annual awards program. Other first-time recipients include Asia Satellite Telecommunications (Hong Kong), Orange Business Services, ZTE Corporation (China), Paris-based Business Objects, Australia-based Clarity, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore.

Held for the fourth consecutive year, the Awards seek to recognize companies and individuals that have pushed the boundaries of excellence - rising above the competition and demonstrating outstanding performance in the ICT industry across the region for base year 2006.

Nitin Bhat, Asia Pacific vice president for the ICT Practice at Frost & Sullivan, says, “Stronger economic fundamentals, intense competition, and the realization of scale and scope of ICT adoption has led to a phenomenal year in terms of growth in 2006. While the industry leaders were able to strengthen their position in many markets, emerging companies stole the thunder by employing innovative business models.

“The 2007 award recipients represent an eclectic mix of global market leaders and regional or local players in Asia Pacific. This is reinforced by the fact that three Malaysian companies were awarded, reflecting their importance in the regional marketplace,” adds Bhat.

Other celebrated recipients were Huawei and Ericsson, each walking away with two awards. Huawei remained consistent by defending the two awards it received last year, namely, the Optical Vendor of the Year and Broadband Equipment Vendor of the Year awards.

Ericsson also repeated its feat of clinching the award for Wireless Infrastructure Vendor of the Year for the second consecutive year, in addition to also being named the Vendor of the Year.

A total of 26 coveted titles were conferred to 24 organizations in the ICT industry, representing the wide spectrum of enterprise solution vendors, telecom equipment vendors and service providers in Asia Pacific. The award recipients were selected from a short list of over 80 key ICT players, telecommunications companies and regulatory bodies operating across 14 countries in the region.

Other companies who also successfully defended their titles this year include Alcatel-Lucent for Next Generation Infrastructure Vendor of the Year, Comverse for Telecom BSS Vendor of the Year, IBM Daksh for Contact Center Outsourcing Service Provider of the Year, and Index Corporation of Japan for Mobile Content Developer of the Year.

The award recipients were selected following a rigorous process in which a team of 30 leading Frost & Sullivan analysts short listed, researched and evaluated the contenders in each category, applying the same thorough approach that has been the hallmark of Frost & Sullivan globally.

The findings of the detailed evaluation were then presented to an independent panel of judges comprising influential personalities, decision makers and thought leaders in the Asia Pacific ICT industry, who have in themselves pushed the boundaries of innovation and corporate excellence, in deciding the recipients in each award category.

All contenders were evaluated based on a variety of actual market performance indicators which include revenue growth, market share and growth in market share, leadership in product innovation, breadth of products and solutions, major customer acquisitions, and business and market strategy, amongst other category-specific criteria.

Crowning the ‘Gems of Asia’

Frost & Sullivan congratulates all the outstanding recipients of the 2007 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards

Category	Award Recipient
Telecom Vendor Category
Next Generation Infrastructure Vendor of the Year	Alcatel-Lucent
Optical Vendor of the Year	Huawei Technologies
Broadband Equipment Vendor of the Year	Huawei Technologies
Wireless Infrastructure Vendor of the Year	Ericsson
Telecom BSS Vendor of the Year	Comverse
Telecom OSS Vendor of the Year	Clarity
Service Provider Category
Wireless Service Provider of the Year	DiGi (Malaysia)
Wireless Data Service Provider of the Year	Hutchison Telecom’s 3 Australia
Competitive Service Provider of the Year	SoftBank Corporation (Japan)
Next Generation Service Provider of the Year	Telstra (Australia)
Broadband Service Provider of the Year	Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (Japan)
Mobile Content Developer of the Year	Index Corporation (Japan)
Data Communications Service Provider of the Year	Orange Business Services
Contact Center Outsourcing Service Provider of the Year	IBM Daksh
Satellite Communications Service Provider of the Year	Asia Satellite Telecommunications (Hong Kong)
Enterprise Vendor Category
Business Intelligence Vendor of the Year	Business Objects
Enterprise Telephony Vendor of the Year	Cisco Systems
Contact Center Applications Vendor of the Year	Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories  (an Alcatel-Lucent Company)
Network Security Vendor of the Year	Juniper Networks
Best of the Best
Most Promising Innovative Application/Product of the Year	Genico® 3G Pocketsports by NGC Systems (Malaysia)
Most Promising Vendor of the Year	ZTE Corporation
Vendor of the Year	Ericsson
CEO of the Year: Service Provider	Wang Jian Zhou - China Mobile
Most Promising Service Provider of the Year	Vanco Asia Pacific
Service Provider of the Year	Telekom Malaysia Berhad
Outstanding Contribution to Industry Development	Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

On the panel of judges were:

1.       Manoj Menon - Partner, Frost & Sullivan

2.       Sin Siew Teyew - Director of Telecoms (Asia Pacific), Frost & Sullivan

3.       Subbaraman Iyer - Director, ICT Practice (Asia Pacific), Frost & Sullivan

4.       Sunil Kapoor - Director of Central Buying and former CIO, Fortis Healthcare

5.       Ahmad Azhar Yahya - Group CIO, Telekom Malaysia

6.       Chu Hong Keong - CIO, HSBC Bank Malaysia

7.       Teo Chin Seng - CIO, ST Engineering

8.       Todd Schofield - CTO, International SOS

9.       Raymond Tan - Editor, Network World Asia

10.   Ashwini Bakshi - Director of Services Sales (Asia Pacific), Nokia Siemens Networks

11.   John Tull - Chief Marketing Officer and VP of Public Affairs (Asia Pacific), Alcatel-Lucent

12.   Steven Ing - Professional Services Director (Asia Pacific), SAS

13.   Wendy Koh - Sales Director (ASEAN), Juniper Networks

14.   Jay Andersen - VP, Sales (South & East Asia), Networks & Enterprise, Motorola Inc.

15.   Joseph Waring - Group Editor, Telecom Asia and Wireless Asia

16.   David Storrie - Head of Network & Wholesale Services, StarHub

17.   David Nishball - President (Enterprise Services), Bharti Airtel

18.   Wong Soon Nam - VP (Business Marketing), SingTel

19.   Benney Cheng - VP, Southeast Asia, PCCW Global

20.  Wilfred Kwan - President and CTO, Asia Netcom

The 2007 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards is supported by CommunicAsia 2007, EnterpriseIT 2007, Interactive DME, MSC Malaysia, Mlabs, Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corporation. Media partners of the awards are BBC World, Telecom Asia, Wireless Asia, Enterprise Innovation, Network World Asia, ZDNet and Business Today.

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About the Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards

The Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards is held annually to recognize outstanding performance by companies and individuals in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry in Asia Pacific. The awards are presented to companies that demonstrate best practices in their industry, commending the diligence, commitment, and innovative business strategies required to advance in the global marketplace. It has, over the years, attracted some of the leading names in technology on a single platform to compete for the most coveted titles in ICT. Benchmarked against the highest standards of measurement criteria, the recipients of these awards indeed represent the best-in-class in Asia Pacific. For more information on the awards, research and judging process, and past recipients, please visit www.ict-awards.com

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting company, has been partnering with clients to support the development of innovative strategies for more than 40 years.  The company's industry expertise integrates growth consulting, growth partnership services and corporate management training to identify and develop opportunities.  Frost & Sullivan serves an extensive clientele that includes Global 1000 companies, emerging companies, and the investment community, by providing comprehensive industry coverage that reflects a unique global perspective and combines ongoing analysis of markets, technologies, econometrics, and demographics.  For more information, visit www.awards.frost.com

Media contact:

Sarah Lourdes                                                               Surbhi Dedhia

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