SYDNEY, 7 October 2008 – The third annual Frost & Sullivan Australia Best Practices Awards is back this year with 16 award category recipients being announced at a gala dinner in Sydney on Thursday 6 November.

The Awards, held annually, recognise outstanding performance by companies in the ICT industry in Australia. Launched for the first time in 2006, the Awards attract some of the leading names in the Australian ICT industry onto a single platform to compete for the most coveted titles in ICT. Benchmarked against leading companies in each category, the recipients of these awards represent the best-of-breed in Australia.

For 2008, Frost & Sullivan will provide awards for market leadership and customer satisfaction in five industry categories: Telecoms, Enterprise Communications, IT Security, Digital Media and Sustainable IT. The recipients of the market leadership awards will be judged according to their market performance in 2007/08, while the customer satisfaction awards will be presented to companies based on their customer satisfaction ratings from Frost & Sullivan’s demand side market surveys.

“Our team of analysts based in Sydney are involved in the research and selection process, applying the same thorough approach employed in our research and consulting projects,” said Mark Dougan, Managing Director ANZ, Frost & Sullivan.

In addition to the Awards, Frost & Sullivan will be staging for the second time, the “ICT 2008/09: Frost & Sullivan Round Tables” which will focus on Digital Media Advertising and Unified Communications.

Each session will kick-off with a wrap-up of 2008 followed by an outlook for 2009. The round tables will be hosted by Frost & Sullivan’s Darryl Nelson, Senior Research Manager, Digital Media, and Audrey William, Senior Research Manager, Enterprise & Unified Communications. Following the analyst presentations, there will be a 45 minute round-table session which will include participation from the expert panel and audience.

Speakers on the panels this year include:

Pippa Leary, Managing Director Media, Fairfax Digital

Andrew Cordwell, Sales Director, Fox Interactive Media

Troy Martin, Director Sales, CBS Interactive (C|Net Networks)

Rob Manning, GM Advertising, MediaSmart

Dave Green, Head of Advertising, Vodafone

Gerard Florian, Chief Technology Officer, Dimension Data

Carol White, Director Convergence, Telstra

Harold Melnick, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft

Craig Campbell, Business Unit Executive, IBM Global Services

Dinesh Divakar, Director Enterprise Solutions, Alcatel-Lucent

“The round tables were very well received in 2007 so we have decided to build on their initial momentum and are delighted with the top line up of confirmed industry thought leaders. The event will provide a great opportunity for the industry to learn about both the opportunities and the challenges that lie ahead in these uncertain economic times. The gala awards will then provide a forum for the Australian ICT industry to celebrate the year that was,” said Dougan. This year’s Awards are supported by salesforce.com.

The 2008 Frost & Sullivan Australia Best Practices Awards banquet will be held at Harbourside, Darling Harbour, Sydney commencing at 6pm. For further information and tickets, please contact Mark Dougan at Frost & Sullivan on 02 8247 8914.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company's TEAM Research, Growth Consulting and Growth Team Membership empower clients to create a growth-focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan employs over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 30 offices on six continents. For more information about Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Partnerships, visit http://www.frost.com