Ten organisations shared the top awards at the ceremony, held at the National Motorcycle Museum on Tuesday, November 10th with a further 26 organisations gaining highly commended accolades.

The awards were open to any technology based SME company or public sector organisation and featured a new category for companies registered since January 2008, the Technology Strategy Board's Special Award for High Growth Potential Business 2009. Mike Musson, ICT Cluster Manager, said: "The level of innovation, creativity and business effectiveness this year has really impressed the judges. All finalists should be proud of their achievements as the awards are a testament to the growing technology sector in our region. The judging process has been rigorous and the panel faced a major challenge in deciding the final winners due to the sheer quality, innovation and excellent products and services provided by all the finalists."

Bromsgrove based Wapple, a technology firm that has created platforms for companies and brand owners to develop mobile internet sites was crowned the ICT Excellence Overall Champion and received £2,000. The company was also a joint winner in the Best Innovative Product category for its product Architect. The judges selected Wapple for its technical brilliance and provision of a product that taps into the rapidly growing use of the internet via mobile phones. 

Wapple's Architect enables business and brands to benefit from the mobile internet.  Architect is a revolutionary and truly barrier-breaking solution for anyone developing for mobile. It enables existing website content, data and applications to be presented perfectly for mobile users and mobile browsers. All graphics, forms, text and functionality fit perfectly within the phone screen and are optimised to each and every unique mobile web device from old wml browsers to newer smartphones such as the Blackberry and iPhone.

Coventry's Objectivity won the award for Most Improved Business. The company specialises in developing and maintaining bespoke software applications for some of the world's largest organisations including Shell, 3i, Primark, IPC Media and a host of others.

The judges selected Objectivity Ltd for its impressive growth, innovative applications and strong client base. Objectivity has transformed itself within the last two years, changing almost everything, from its commercial offering to creating a wholly-owned near-shore development centre in Poland. Objectivity introduced formal methodologies for almost every aspect of its business and gained ISO 9001 accreditation. A quality team, peer group reviews, formal project management and business analysis techniques were also introduced, making every aspect of the company professional, customer focused and quality driven. 

Lichfield company Invoice Quick won the Best Added Value Service Award category, for its Invoice Quick software service which it claims is the quickest and most secure way to invoice business customers. The service allows companies to access their data and use their customised invoice system from anywhere in the world.  

Dynistics, a Solihull based company, won the Best Added Value Product category.

The company was recognised for its highly innovative Active Dashboards technology which helps organisations of all sizes to unlock the full value of management information held within their existing software applications.  Active Dashboards does this by connecting directly to existing application databases and presenting a real-time visual representation of an organisation's critical operational information, enabling faster, better informed decision making. 

University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust won the Best Added Value Project category. The Trust, one of the UK's largest teaching Trusts responsible for management of two major hospitals in Coventry and Warwickshire employing approximately 6,500 (excluding volunteers), won the award for the highly successful VitalPAC project which is being used by front line nursing staff to ensure that the right data is collected in the right place at the right time. Collecting the data once means less nursing time spent on administration and more spent on direct patient care.

University of Wolverhampton based IT Futures was successful in the Best Knowledge Transfer category. The judges selected IT Futures for being at the forefront of assisting small businesses with knowledge transfer. It enables businesses to tap into knowledge and expertise that they may not otherwise have had access to. The project has assisted over 400 businesses in the West Midlands to date, helping them make the transition into new technologies and enhance their knowledge of emerging technologies. 

Rosslyn Analytics, a technology company that specialises in spend analysis, was awarded first prize in the Best Innovative Service category for its flagship software as a service solution, RA.Pid Enterprise. 

RA.Pid Enterprise, with the rapidintel.com platform, is a fully-managed spend analysis solution that helps users to quickly identify cost savings, improve profit margins, manage risk, shorten sourcing cycle times and boost employee performance by automating the management of spend data, from the extraction of data through to ready-to-use browser-based "slice & dice" reports.

Aldridge based Integrated Systems Technology Limited (ISTL) was recognised as a joint winner of the Best Innovative Product award for its innovative electronic lighting products and optical systems. The company's novel low carbon technology can be used to retrofit lighting applications with dimmable LEDs that save up to seven times the electricity used by standard light bulbs. 

Halesowen company Mi-Zone Ltd won the Technology Strategy Board's Special Award for High Growth Potential Business 2009. The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) will work with Mi-Zone to tailor a package of support which could include advice and support in a number of areas for market analysis, intellectual property protection, business planning, knowledge transfer, European funding schemes, public relations or international trade. The TSB acknowledges that early stage innovative ICT businesses may often lack the time and resources to address these aspects.

The judges were impressed by the company's Stay Close at All Times (SCAAT) technology for monitoring the presence and/or proximity of valuable objects or people to a mobile phone device with active Bluetooth tags. The phone will be able to search for the tag or be alerted (via an alarm and flashing light) if the tag moves out of a pre-determined 'safe' zone.

Bridgnorth firm Start Software's cow feed management software earned the company the Chair's Award for Excellence, which this year was for Social, Environmental and Economic Impact. Its Total Diet Management v3 uses sophisticated algorithms to enable farmers to maximise their profit margin by analysing the cost and formulation of their feed and the value of the milk produced.