Accenture and Avanade® Named Microsoft’s Enterprise Alliance Partner of the Year

SYDNEY: June 26, 2009 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and Avanade have been named the 2009 Enterprise Alliance Partner of the Year by Microsoft, as well as recognised as finalists for the Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Systems Management Partner of the Year Award and the Information Worker Solutions, Portals and Collaboration Partner of the Year Award. In each case, Accenture and Avanade were selected from among an international network of leading companies that deliver solutions built on the Microsoft platform.

It is the fifth time – and second consecutive year – that Accenture and Avanade, a business technology service provider majority owned by Accenture, have jointly won the Partner of the Year Award, more than any other Microsoft Enterprise Alliance Partner. 

Accenture and Avanade were selected as leading partners across Microsoft’s 13 major geographic regions, a result of each region’s enterprise team ranking them among the top five Microsoft partners.  Accenture and Avanade differentiated themselves by:

• Working closely with Microsoft’s subsidiaries to create and deliver joint solutions in areas including collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence and custom solutions built on Microsoft .NET.
• Developing a collection of assets and solutions that allow organisations to get the most from their Microsoft investments.
• Leveraging over 41,500 Microsoft resources around the world – the largest number of skilled resources of any IT services firm.

         Delivering superior business results for more than 1,600 clients, leveraging more