Entries Now Open For UK Cloud Awards 2015

Pioneers in the UK cloud industry are to be recognised at the second annual UK Cloud Awards taking place in the nation’s capital next March with the aim to celebrate innovation, entrepreneurialism and technical excellence.

The Cloud Industry Forum [CIF], in partnership with Cloud Pro, announced that submissions for the awards are now open and an independent panel of judges will decide on the runners and riders after the closing date for submissions on 23 January 2015.

“The last four years of UK research from CIF shows that Cloud is now a strategic consideration in most users’ IT estates, with the majority envisaging a mix of both on-premise and Cloud services,” admitted Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF. “We are anticipating a bigger and bolder event, but also a more extensive choice of both awards categories to showcase innovation in the UK Cloud industry.”

Awards will be handed out across 21 different categories that are divided up into five sections that cover products, cloud security, service providers, projects and there is a single achievement award that recognises the cloud personality of the year.

In the product category, companies will be aiming to get the award for the best storage product, business continuity service, management product, productivity suite, accounting suite, ERP product, and CRM/HCM product. In addition there are gongs for the most innovative SMB cloud solution and enterprise cloud solution.

Companies in the cloud security sector can win awards for the best cloud encryption product, cloud privacy/protection product, data security provider and general cloud security product.

Service providers are able to gain recognition as best newcomer, platform provider, cloud integrator, Cloudstore provider and cloud service provider, and there are two awards for the best cloud project in the public sector or private sector.

The judging panel will be made up of consultants, analysts, CIOs, academics, venture capitalists and each category will be judged by specialists within that field. The ceremony itself takes place on 11 March 2015 and information on the Canary Wharf venue and how to nominate can be found at this link.