The annual Awards always creates a strong buzz in Hong Kong's enterprise IT community, and we're fielding numerous phone calls and emails inquiring about their mechanics. Please allow me to give everyone a run-down of the actual Awards process. You'll gain more insight, and my cellphone battery might actually survive a full day without a recharge!

The Computerworld Hong Kong Awards--a program we feel is the most prestigious IT Awards in Hong Kong--is designed to reward vendors for excellence in their respective fields. The decision of "worthiest-vendor" is one we delegate to our enterprise end-user readers. The firm that receives the most votes in each category wins the award.

Naturally, the definition of "excellence" can be oceans apart for different users. It can mean the best technical service, the most innovative product, best bang for the buck, best client sales rep...you name it. At the end of the day, it's hard to quantify what's the single most important aspect to the user. We leave it up to our readers to weigh the various merits of IT products or services--after all, they are the people who use these services or products day in and day out.

The awards categories are decided by the CWHK team. We then present this list to prominent tech analysts, consultants, and CIOs, for their input on the particular vendors they feel best represents the categories. This step is taken in order to ensure the transparency of the selection process.

Once the companies and products are determined, we then create the Computerworld Hong Kong Awards ballot. The ballots are then sent out via email or post to eligible voters.