Entries for the 2010 Microsoft Partner Awards have opened today, which aim to honour the best of Microsoft's 3,500 New Zealand Partners who "delivered exemplary solutions to address customers' business challenges".

The Channel reported in January that Microsoft would make a number of changes to its New Zealand Partner Awards in order to recognise more partners. The 2009 awards received a record number of entries and this year will see three new categories: the Partners' Choice CIO of the Year, the Business Impact Solution of the Year, and the MSN NZ Advertising Partner of the Year.

Brent Colbert, Director, Partner Group at Microsoft, said the changes will allow the awards to have a larger impact on the industry at large. “The awards are designed to reward our partners for the great work they do all year long. We felt it was important to expand the awards scope this year as a chance to demonstrate and celebrate more of that high-caliber work produced by the industry.

The 20 awards categories are:

Solution Awards

• Application Platform Solution of the Year

• Enterprise Content Management Solution of the Year

• Portals - Collaboration Solution of the Year

• Unified Communications Solution of the Year

• Core Infrastructure Solution of the Year

• Dynamics CRM Solution of the Year

• Dynamics ERP Solution of the Year

• Small Business Solution of the Year

• Citizenship Solution of the Year

Individual Awards

• Solutions Architect of the Year (formerly Solutions Star of the Year)

• Partners Choice CIO of the Year (NEW)

Partnering Awards

• Distributor of the Year

• Reseller of the Year

• MSN NZ Advertising Partner of the Year (NEW)

• Learning Solutions Partner of the Year

• Online Services Partner of the Year (Formerly Software plus Services Partner of the year)

• Partnering of the Year Award

Supreme Awards

• ISV Solution of the Year

• Platform Value Partner of the Year

• Business Impact Solution of the Year (NEW)

Partners can submit entries online from Wednesday March 24th until Wednesday June 2nd. The Awards ceremony will be held in Auckland this September.