New awards ceremony recognises partner excellence throughout the Oracle community

25 July, 2008: LONDON: - UK Oracle User Group (UKOUG), the independent not for profit membership organisation, who this year celebrates its 25th anniversary, has today launched the ‘Partner of the Year’ awards, the first customer driven awards ceremony to recognise and reward the value that partners bring to Oracle users.

The UKOUG Partner of the Year awards will be voted on by Oracle users, who will vote in 20 categories, to reward the partner organisation who the community recognise as having best supported Oracle users throughout the past 12months.

Nominations for UKOUG Partner of the Year are open and can be made at: www.oug.org/nominate.  Voting within the UKOUG Partner of the Year awards will open on Thursday 31st July, 2008, and can be made at www.oug.org/vote, and will close on Wednesday 20th August, 2008.  The awards ceremony will take place on Thursday 16th October, 2008, at Claridges, London.  The award winners will also be recognised and promoted at the annual UKOUG Conference & Exhibition, held at the ICC, Birmingham, from 1st – 5th December, 2008.

Awards Categories include:
•   UKOUG Applications Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Technology Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Training Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Managed Services/Support Excellence Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Customer Service Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Project Management/Project Delivery Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Database Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Public Sector Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Small Business Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Shared Services Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Contractor/Employment Agency of the Year
•   UKOUG Middleware Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Consulting Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Business Intelligence Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG JD Edwards Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG PeopleSoft Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Siebel Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Hyperion Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Innovative Partner of the Year
•   UKOUG Cost-efficient Partner of the Year

Ronan Miles, chairman of UKOUG comments, “Oracle Partners are one of the most important groups of stakeholders within the Oracle User Group community.  The UKOUG Partner of the Year awards aims to publically recognise and reward the valuable contribution these organisations make.”

Miles continues, “Partners fulfil a vital purpose in supporting a successful Oracle ecosystem in the UK and Ireland. They bring domain expertise to the fore in areas which Oracle is not able to resource and customers cannot afford to develop themselves. I am very pleased that UKOUG is able to launch these partner awards as a feature which will acknowledge their contribution to the success of UK PLC and especially our members.”

To nominate an Oracle Partner please visit: www.oug.org/nominate

To vote for an Oracle Partner, from Thursday 31st July, 2008, please visit: www.oug.org/vote