ITSMA Announces Winners of 2006 Marketing Excellence Awards

CDW, EMC Corporation, Lucent Technologies, Nokia Networks, and Xerox receive top honors

LEXINGTON, Massachusetts—November 16, 2006—ITSMA, a membership organization that helps companies market and sell technology services and solutions, announced the winners of the 2006 Marketing Excellence Awards at a gala awards dinner held last night during its 12 th Annual Marketing Conference. The ten companies honored this year are: Accenture, Avaya, CDW, Cisco, EMC Corporation, Lucent, Nokia, Northrop Grumman, Symbol Technologies, and Xerox.

The 2006 awards program focuses on five critical areas of marketing: launching new solutions, sharpening competitive differentiation, generating demand through micro- and account-based marketing, increasing sales effectiveness, and improving customer relationships. An international jury of marketing executives and experts selected the winners based on excellence in innovation, program execution, and business results. The awards honor excellence at two levels: diamond and gold.

"The categories for this year's awards program reflected the fact that technology marketers today must create value for the business in a variety of new and distinctive ways," said Dave Munn, president and CEO of ITSMA. "We're pleased to spotlight the achievements of marketers who have gone above and beyond in driving value to the business through unique programs and tireless execution."

2006 Winners

Launching New Solutions

• Diamond Award: EMC Corporation—The EMC eDiscovery Solution
• Gold Award: Avaya—Avaya On Demand

Sharpening Competitive Differentiation

• Diamond Award: Nokia Networks—Business Solutions Portfolio: The Solutioneers
• Gold Award: Symbol Technologies—Less Is More

Generating Demand Through Micro- and Account-Based Marketing

• Diamond Award: Xerox Global Services—How Monogamy Is Helping to Win and Keep Big Customers
• Gold Award: Northrop Grumman—Public-Private IT Infrastructure Partnership with the Commonwealth of Virginia

Increasing Sales Effectiveness

• Diamond Award: Lucent Technologies—Lucent Worldwide Services' Value-Based Engagement Marketing Process
• Gold Award: Cisco Systems—Cisco ARM Service Sales Incentive Program

Strengthening Customer Relationships

• Diamond Award: CDW—Can We Talk? CDW's Online Communities Make Customers 24/7 Insiders
• Gold Award: Accenture—The Accenture Global Convergence Forum 2006

For more information about the specifics of the winning programs, please visit: http://www.itsma.com/news/mea.

About ITSMA
ITSMA specializes in helping companies market and sell services and solutions more effectively. As a membership organization, we work with the world's leading technology, communications, and professional services providers to generate increased demand, strengthen customer relationships, and improve brand differentiation. ITSMA members include business leaders such as Accenture, BT, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and Tata Consultancy Services, among others. Our comprehensive research, consulting, and training on topics including ITSMA Account-Based Marketing ^SM, Brand Positioning, and Solutions Development provide the insight and experience companies need to improve business results. ITSMA is based near Boston, and has offices in London and Tokyo. Learn more at www.itsma.com.