We Salute You

12:20 PM -- Each month, we get a ton of mail about awards, from vendors, publications, consultancies. Mostly vendors. It fuels a small samovar on the back porch of our NYC HQ.

Now, we have nothing against awards. At the very least, they make people feel good -- just not always the buyers of technology. But hey, what's wrong with feeling good?

In fact, we're ready to give an award of our own. We'll call it the Pursed Lips Award. And it goes to... drumroll... consultancy Frost & Sullivan!

There's no contest. Each year, the firm honors, praises, lauds, and glorifies a whole raft of companies. In August alone, Frost gave out over ten awards. In July, it gave out 20. No wonder this firm's got a special Web page devoted to awards.

All these awards have generated a plethora of announcements, including hundreds posted on Frost's Website. The last eight weeks alone, there have been awards for Technology Innovation, Best Practices, Product Innovation, Technology Leadership, Product Line Strategy, and Market Leadership. Among the recipients were Internet Security Systems Inc., Polycom Inc., Popular Telephony Inc., Veraz Networks Inc., WebEx Communications Inc., and Vitesse Semiconductor Corp..Frost's mission is "To publish world-class market consulting information and intelligence on emerging high-technology and industrial markets." We think it should never stop. We like our afternoon tea hot.

Mary Jander, KMA Awards Editor, Byte and Switch