Microsoft Talk

Eight vendors receive Microsoft’s annual Excellence Awards.

Selected by a panel of Microsoft executives, recipients of the MSVP Excellence Awards are recognized for the exceptional service they provide to the company. To be considered for this award, vendors must first be nominated by a Microsoft employee based on the characteristics of value, quality, flexibility, innovation, security and privacy.

This year Microsoft expanded the awards to include a category for environmental excellence, an honor being shared by two companies. The vendors received their awards during the seventh MSVP Annual Vendor Summit on Microsoft’s corporate campus in Redmond.

“The MSVP Excellence Awards recognize those Microsoft vendors that stand head and shoulders above the rest for the quality and consistency of their service,” said Tim McBride, general manager and chief procurement officer at Microsoft. “Numerous companies make exceptional contributions to the success of Microsoft, making the selection process challenging each year. We congratulate our 2008 MSVP Excellence Awards recipients and look forward to continued partnership and collaboration.”

2008 MSVP Excellence Award Winners

Microsoft named winners in seven categories: Vendor of the Year, Diversity, Environmental, Service, Technology, Quality and Value.

• Vendor of the Year Award: Lionbridge Technologies Inc. Founded in 1996, this U.S.-based vendor has more than 4,000 employees around the world who provide Microsoft with development, test and globalization services worldwide.

• Diversity Award: Marriott International Inc. Marriott International is a leading lodging company, with about 3,000 lodging properties located in the U.S. and 67 other countries and territories. Recognizing Microsoft’s commitment to diversity initiatives, Marriott International built its growth plan around diversity and continues to expand.

• Environmental Award: Grubb & Ellis Co. Grubb & Ellis is a highly respected real estate management and business services firm, operating one of the nation’s largest full-service operations. Grubb & Ellis has worked diligently to reduce Microsoft’s environmental impact by delivering more than 30 initiatives during the past year.

• Environmental Award: Compass Group PLC. The Compass Group is one of the nation’s leading food management and hospitality service companies in North America. Recognizing that a significant component of municipal solid waste consists of food and food packaging, the Microsoft Compass Green team conducted intensive research and through these efforts received certification by the Green Restaurant Association, and plan to expand that certification to the five other Microsoft kitchens operating in the U.S.

• Service Award: CRG Events. CRG Events is a full-service event management and registration company with more than 28 years of experience. Each year, CRG Events produces more than160 events around the world, ranging in size from 10 attendees to more than 14,000. CRG Events developed a completely new registration process, database, Web site and customer service plan that supported event participants during Tech•Ed North America.

• Technology Award: Toshiba America Inc. Toshiba America is the holding company for one of the nation’s leading groups of high-technology companies, with a combined total of about 8,000 employees in the U.S. It also is a launch partner and hard disc drive vendor for the Zune 80 program.

• Quality Award: MV Transportation Inc. Founded in 1975, MV Transportation is the largest privately held and domestically owned transportation management company in the U.S. In 2007, MV Transportation worked closely with Microsoft’s Real Estate & Facilities staff to launch the Connector, an employee commuter bus program that now transports almost 2,000 Microsoft employees to work each day.

• Value Award: Revonet Inc. Revonet’s core responsibility has been helping Microsoft’s registered partners win competitive engagements. This year, in addition to delivering exceptional results on their core metrics, Revonet has made a number of strategic contributions, which include identifying and supporting a key Office Open XML solution for the American Red Cross disaster relief team, participating on a key technical standards committee and recruiting a record number of members for Microsoft’s strategic policy community.