Interactive Intelligence's Best of Show Award confusion

So I feel I need to clear up the the stink that I caused with Interactive Intelligence and their Best In Show Award that was issued to them by the show’s editors for “Best SMB Solution”. As I mentioned in the previous blog post, InIn was given the award at the 2009 IT Expo East show in Miami. (Click here for a complete list of winners.) Here is my excerpt if you didn’t read the whole post (It was a little lengthy):

“Shortly before the show closed I attended a “Bullseye routing” demo given by Interactive Intelligence. Now what caught my eye here is the award in the picture. “Best SMB Solution” was what it read… SMB Solution? There is nothing SMB about Interactive Intelligence and their solution. They don’t pretend to be SMB and will always claim to be an enterprise solution. I asked one of the InIn folks and she wasn’t sure what that was all about but would look into it. I even approached TMC’s Greg Galitzine about it and he told me he’d look into it. Greg I’m going to hold you to that and expect a response…”

Well I didn’t get a response from Greg yet but I did speak with an Interactive Intelligence representative working the booth and she told me that their PR representative made a mistake and entered them into that category. Now I don’t think she was giving me lip service and that this was an honest mistake on the PR rep’s part, but I still have a problem here.

So where’s the beef do you ask? Well in my humble opinion, the editors at TMC should have caught this mistake. They live and die in this communications space and should know that II solutions are not SMB but rather definitivly enterprise. There is not even a blend where it could cross the chasm and maybe, even remotely be SMB designed, etc. So TMC editors, I ask that if you want these awards to really mean something, which I think do, please, please, please make sure you review your applications a little more closely, and make sure the shoe fits, so to speak, before you issue the next round of awards. I understand that you guys are busy at these shows and that may be a difficult task, but a glaring error like this should not go undetected until after the fact.

The show was fantastic otherwise, I spoke with more people then I expected, and attendance seems like it was record breaking. So hats off to TMC in that respect. You guys do know how to put on a communications conference and I can’t wait to see what the show in Los Angeles in October will bring.

Editors note: Click here to read the outcome.