UK IT Industry Awards 2009: Best new product developed in the UK

We profile the finalists in the biggest UK IT industry awards night

One of the new categories in this year’s UK IT Industry Awards is for the best new product developed in the UK.

The finalists are new products or services that have delivered measurable benefit for customers and have been developed entirely in the UK. The aim of this award is to recognise achievement in business technology product development by UK IT professionals.

The winners will be announced at the lavish prizegiving party, to be held at Battersea Evolution, formerly the Battersea Park Events Arena, in London on Thursday 12 November 2009.

To view the full list of finalists for each award, and to book your table at what will be the biggest night of the UK IT calendar, visit our web site at www.computing.co.uk/awards.

Lost Wax ­- Aerogility

Aerogility helps aviation companies keep their aircraft flying. Modern planes are expensive, complex and operate at the highest levels of safety. Aviation companies have to manage complicated maintenance schedules over the lifetime of the fleet, including everything from routine maintenance to challenging upgrade programmes. Aerogility is a simulation system based on artificial intelligence technology. Fleet managers can use Aerogility to run a “virtual reality” maintenance programme before they assign expensive resources to the job.

TadaSoft ­- Restorepoint

Restorepoint is an appliance-based solution for backing up and restoring configuration files from multi-vendor network devices. Restorepoint increases user productivity by ensuring the infrastructure backups are done on time and every time. Everyone is concerned with backing up file servers and storage networks, but what about the infrastructure? Restorepoint is a box that does all of this.

Buzan Online ­- iMindMap

Buzan Online was founded in 2006 by Chris Griffiths and Tony Buzan based on a vision to produce a computer-based tool that reflected the true nature of mind mapping. iMindMap was launched in 2007 and culminated in the launch of version 4 in May 2009. The software has thousands of users worldwide, in the home, in education, and in companies such as IBM, Microsoft and Nasa.

Portal Technology Systems -­ hybris://QuickLive

Portaltech’s hybris://QuickLive is an e-commerce platform designed to appeal to new and existing online merchants that need to develop or upgrade their web capability. It has been designed specifically for retailers who need greater control over their e-business initiatives, richer functionality to improve conversion and more powerful integration capabilities to support web channel growth. Mid-market retailers can get up and running on a leading e-commerce platform quickly and cost effectively.

Ninth Wave/Lloyds Banking Group ­- Change Management Toolkit

The product is the bank’s Change Management Toolkit (CMT), built entirely using Ninth Wave’s SmartCore solution. CMT provides change management, reporting and governance processes for 8,000 users across all business units of the bank. SmartCore is a UK developed, web-based platform allowing distributed users to collaborate and share both information and process in a controlled knowledge management environment.

Unilink Software -­ NForce/ATM

Unilink’s Biometric ATM Kiosk is designed for custodial environments such as prisons, immigration detention centres and secure hospitals. It makes a difference by saving money and by making operations easier for inmates, their families and staff. Since launching the product, which pays for itself in months, Unilink has installed more than 100 systems in the UK and begun trials in Australia.

Sales-i ­- Sales-i

UK software business Sales-i came to market only 18 months ago. Its eponymous product is simple, feeding information to field-based sales people so they can optimise their sales - all for a very affordable monthly subscription of around £1 per working day. Analysts are now watching the company as a barometer of how the software-as-a-service model is taking hold.

Rosslyn Analytics -­ RA.Pid

Rosslyn Analytics has developed RA.Pid, a web-based spend analysis solution that enables finance and procurement teams to obtain purchasing data faster, cheaper and more reliably. By offering pre-built spend analysis applications over the internet, organisations such as Alcan, Clifford Chance, DLA Piper, Serco and Rio Tinto have obtained, viewed, used and shared real-time intelligence in weeks, not months.

Vivantio -­ Vivantio Service Desk

Vivantio Service Desk is a web-based software product enabling customer service and support teams to manage, streamline and improve the quality of their work. The tool is delivered in a traditional on-site model where customers install it on their own equipment at their own premises, as well as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model where customers subscribe and access the application across the internet. About 85 per cent of customers choose the SaaS model.

Vicon -­ T-Series

Vicon is a leader in the motion capture industry, serving customers in the game, film, life science and engineering sectors. The T-Series launched last year as a British technological breakthrough and has customers all over the world. The technology gives clinicians, engineers and animation artists four times more resolution, the ability to capture smaller objects in larger volumes, and can process
data 10 times faster than any other motion capture camera.