Horizon Awards Methodology

Computerworld - The Computerworld Horizon Awards were established this year to make readers aware of especially cutting-edge technologies from research labs and companies that are looming on the horizon.

Beginning this past May, Computerworld accepted nominations online for innovative technologies that meet the needs of enterprise IT. Eligible organizations were required to have a technology that meets one of the following needs:

• Provides the means for applications integration across disparate systems and geographies.

• Facilitates communication and collaboration among geographically dispersed teams orbusiness units.

• Provides security for corporate information assets, and privacy for employee and customer information.

• Manages burgeoning needs for information storage and disaster recovery in today's regulated world.

• Provides manageable mobile/wireless computing for office workers, remote employees and business travelers.

• Improves communications and visibility within the supply chain.

• Makes it easier to manage the plethora of computing, networking and storage devices in today's corporations.

• Manages e-commerce and Web initiatives and helps them turn a profit.

• Extracts and leverages critical business intelligence from expanding data stores.

• Develops high-quality in-house software applications on time and on budget that meet business needs.

• Makes basic improvements in hardware or software architecture that enhance processing or communication for a wide variety of applications.

Horizon Awards Panelists

Horizon Award nominations were also collected from a panel of expert scouts, who alerted us to unique technologies in the field. Information collected in those nominations was then sent to a panel of 10 judges, who reviewed and scored the candidates. Based on those evaluations, Computerworld chose eight Horizon Award winners and 20 honorable mentions. Special thanks go to our five scouts and 10 judges, who helped find and evaluate the winning technologies featured here.

Scouts
A panel of industry experts alerted us to technologies on the horizon. They are:

• Leonard Kleinrock, professor, UCLA


• Jerrold Grochow, vice president for information services and technology, MIT, Cambridge, Mass.


• Gus Tai, general partner, Trinity Ventures, Menlo Park, Calif.


• David Pensak, former research fellow, Du Pont Co.


• Jeff Wacker, fellow/futurist, Electronic Data Systems Corp., Plano, Texas

• Yuri B. Aguiar, senior partner, chief technology officer, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, New York
• Joe Drouin, vice president and CIO, TRW Automotive Holdings Corp., Livonia, Mich.
• Tony F. Fuller, vice president of IT/chief technology officer, Rent-A-Center Inc., Plano, Texas
• Christopher A. Graham, vice president and CIO, Church Mutual Insurance Co., Merrill, Wis.
• Gerhard W. Karba, vice president and CIO, Hines Interests LP, Houston
• Lyn McDermid, senior vice president and CIO, Dominion Resources Services Inc., Richmond, Va.
• Herman Nell, senior vice president and CIO, Fiskars Brands Inc., Madison, Wis.
• Rob Rennie, vice president technology and CIO, Florida Community College, Jacksonville
• Troy D. Thomas, executive vice president, enterprise management services, KeyCorp, Cleveland
• Stova Wong, CIO, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, Los Angeles

Computerworld Horizon Awards

Stories in this report:

• Horizon Awards Methodology
  
• Network Monitor With a Brain
  
• Voice Analyzer Picks Up Clues
  
• IBM Almaden Research Center's Intelligent Bricks and Kybos Software Supersmart Storage
  
• Fleet-Footed Worm Blocker
  
• Python Software Foundation's Python Put in Plain Language
  
• Sun Labs' Proximity Communication Closely Quartered Chips
  
• IBM Almaden Research Center's Sovereign Information Integration Privacy-Minded Security
  
• PubSub Concepts' Prospective Search Tool for Tomorrow
  
• Computerworld Horizon Awards 2005 Honorees
  
• Opinion: Technologies With Promise
  
• R&D Resource Links
  
• Horizon Awards Guest Blogger: Gus Tai