SAP Pinnacle Awards recognize IBM in two categories

SAP Pinnacle Awards
SAP Pinnacle Awards — SAP’s Global Partner Award Program — has been established to recognize the SAP partners who have excelled in developing their partnership with SAP and mutual business by providing quality products, solutions and services to our customers. Each year, SAP partners are eligible for awards in performance categories ranging from sales and marketing to development of solutions and applications.

On May 29, 2006 at SAP Sapphire Paris, SAP announced the winners of its coveted “SAP Pinnacle Awards” at an exclusive ceremony at the Pavillon d’Armenonville. Around 300 representatives from partner companies from all over the world as well as SAP Executives were attending the ceremony. See the winners and finalists of the SAP Pinnacle Awards 2006.

This year IBM Information Management was honored with the award for the “Best Technology Solution” for its outstanding technology developments and innovations. IBM Global Business Services was recognized for the "SAP Pinnacle Award for Incremental Revenue" for IBM's overall contribution to SAP's business.

IBM Information Management has invested significantly in growing the DB2® share of the SAP market by differentiating its technology from other competitive offerings. This investment has resulted in a five-year roadmap delivering tighter, more seamless, virtually “invisible” integration with SAP. This integration and innovation was introduced last year, with the first release of DB2 optimized for SAP, and has continued into 2006 with the release of DB2 Viper, delivering further on the promise made by both IBM and SAP.

The "SAP Pinnacle Award for Incremental Revenue" is given to recognize the systems integration partner who drives the most net new revenue to SAP. IBM is investing in key strategic initiatives with SAP, continuously extending and strengthening our alliance partnership. IBM Global Business Services is the largest SAP systems integrator in the world, with over 10,000 SAP practitioners and over 5,000 successful SAP projects worldwide. An emphasis on practice excellence has helped IBM Global Business Services achieve a position of leadership, serving over 70% of SAP's Fortune 500 installed base as well as small and medium business clients.

Volker Loehr (General Manager, Global IBM SAP Alliance) and Tony Rummans (Vice President, IBM Information Management) receive the Pinnacle Award for IBM DB2 for ''Best Technology Solution from Stephan Rossius (Sr Vice President of SAP Global Partner Management)	Jim Richardson (IBM GBS, Associate Partner, Global SAP Alliance), Rudolf Niehus (IBM GBS, Partner, Global SAP Alliance), Volker Loehr (General Manager, Global IBM SAP Alliance) and Philip Thrush (IBM GBS, Partner) receive the Award for 'Incremental Revenue Contribution' from Stephan Rossius (Sr Vice President of SAP Global Partner Management)