The 2014 Innovation Awards, which recognize the technological achievements of companies forging new ground with Red Hat solutions, are now open for nominations. The Innovation Awards are open to all Red Hat customers and partners worldwide. As a judge for the eighth consecutive year, I am looking forward to reading about the innovative ways our customers and partners are utilizing Red Hat technologies to confront today’s challenging business issues.

I am always impressed when I review these stories from our customers and partners who are leveraging the full advantage of the open source development model to overcome challenges and create value for their organizations. Your success is important, and I encourage you to submit a nomination for the 2014 Innovation Awards. The Innovation Awards page will remain open until December 13, 2013 at http://www.redhat.com/innovationconnection/awards.html. Winners will be recognized at the Red Hat Summit taking place April 14-17, 2014 in San Francisco, CA.

Given the economic climate over the past few years, it has become vital for CIOs to become laser-focused on keeping their IT spending in check, while at the same time, deliver the necessary technology to become and remain a high-performing organization. Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to review award-winning submissions from organizations that are doing just that, including leading enterprises such as Cigna, Intuit, New York & Company, Nationwide, and Roche, just to name a few. Each year, I am always impressed to see the performance and ROI improvements highlighted in submissions by organizations in numerous industries around the world.

For example, by using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, middleware, and virtualization solutions, Cigna, the 2013 Red Hat Innovator of the year, has successfully designed and built a self-service provisioning component to develop frameworks and solutions that allow them to rapidly respond to new healthcare regulations and reform. Watch the winning video here. In addition, tired of paying exorbitant licensing and maintenance fees for proprietary middleware, Sprint Nextel deployed the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform. The company was able to significantly cut costs while delivering enhanced flexibility and agility to their mission-critical business applications. Read the full story here.

I hope that you will consider nominating your organization for the 2014 Innovation Awards and I am looking forward to reviewing your submission.  

Thanks,

Lee