Microsoft's New Zealand Partner Awards took place in Auckland last night with more than 400 in attendance across a range of sectors.

The annual event, held this year at Shed 10, celebrated its 11^th anniversary of honouring leading local business partners across the channel, recognising Microsoft partners big and small that are demonstrating inventive use of digital technology.

According to Microsoft, the new look streamlined ceremony saw the awards pivot to a sharper focus on customers winners including Lexel Systems for their innovative approach to My Food Bag in the Modern Workplace Category, Theta for their use of Office 365 in collaboration with charitable community health provider Emerge Aotearoa for the Cloud for Good Award.

Another key winner was Datacom for its standout Tourism New Zealand solution that utilsed cloud technology to enable employees to promote our beautiful country easily no matter where they be.

Microsoft New Zealand One Commercial partner director Phil Goldie says the judges praised both the winners and finalists in this year's Partner Awards for their outstanding knowledge, skills and innovations that are propelling New Zealand's technology industry into the future.

“This year the judges were incredibly impressed by the high calibre of entries. It was a genuine challenge to pick the winners in so many closely contested categories,” says Goldie.

“The winners truly showed a range of Microsoft Partners who are delivering excellent solutions and innovations that are optimising businesses as well as improving people's lives.

Microsoft New Zealand's Phil Goldie

Goldie says the event  was a great success in promoting innovation and networking among Microsoft New Zealand partners.

“Our partners play a crucial role in New Zealand's IT sector. Whether they are creating new solutions to meet customer demands or providing insightful IT advice, every day they are realising Microsoft's mission by empowering New Zealand businesses to be trail blazers,” says Goldie.

Without further ado, here is the full list of 2018 winners and highly commended partners:

Winner               Lexel Systems – My Food Bag Highly Com        Intergen – SNAP 365

Winner               The Instillery – The Cloud Savings Calculator Highly Com        Umbrellar – Digital Transformation

Winner               Intergen – Foodstuffs Highly Com        Datacom – Vulcan Steel

Winner               Theta – Downer facilities maintenance application Highly Com        Datacom

Winner               The Laptop Company

Winner               Dicker Data NZ Ltd

Winner               Timely Ltd Highly Com        Datacom – AIA ‘Ava'

Winner               Datacom – Tourism New Zealand Highly Com        Lexel – My Food Bag

Winner               NV Interactive – NV Play

Winner               Intergen – AB Equipment

Winner               Theta – Emerge Aotearoa Office 365