UPDATED: Kiwi hat trick in global Microsoft Partner Awards
Leapthought and VMob have taken top honours at Microsoft's global partner awards, beating off the international competition to bring home two awards, while Intergen was crowned New Zealand 2015 Country Partner of the Year.
Leapthought won the Public Sector, CityNext Partner of the Year award, while VMob took out Cloud Platform: Application Innovation Partner of the Award.
The Kiwi glory didn't stop there, with three Kiwi companies making the finals of the prestigious awards.
Marker Metro was a finalist for Windows 8 Custom App Developer Partner of the Year; New Era IT was finalist in the Public Sector: Education Partner of the Year section; and Vmob was finalist for Intelligent Systems Partner of the Year.
This year's awards saw more than 2300 entries from 108 countries for the 43 global awards, with 110 country awards presented.
Phil Sorgen, Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group corporate vice president, says the awards honour the vendor's top partners who demonstrate excellence in providing solutions and value to mutual customers.
"This year's award winners and finalists are among the most innovative our partner ecosystem has to offer," he adds.
VMob's award Cloud Platform: Application Innovation award came for a McDonald's Japan next-generation loyalty program, which is now being rolled out globally.
Leapthought's win in the Public Sector: CityNext category was for an Auckland Transport solution and the Fulcrum application. The solution integrates into Auckland Transport's existing GIS system to offer the project status and other critical information about risks, delays and issues involving property or land acqusitions for capital projects.
Meanwhile, Microsoft says of Intergen's country partner win: "Great cloud momentum, cloud leadership, innovation and partnering." Microsoft also highlighted Intergen's PGG Wrightson tablet-based CRM solution and says the company delivered a number of lighthouse projects using Azure.
"Congratulations to each winner on this incredible achievement," Sorgen says
The award winners and finalists will be recognised at the 2015 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Florida in July.
