Microsoft, PwC awards for small firms in India

To encourage the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India towards higher adoption of information technology Microsoft India, in association with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), have announced the Annual IT Security Leaders Awards for the SME segment.

The award has been instituted to recognise and reward individuals and their companies in the SME sector across India for pioneering security initiatives.

While announcing the awards, Rajeev Mittal, general manager, SME, Microsoft India said, "As Indian SMEs increase their levels of investments in IT and move up the IT maturity curve, the importance of commensurate security measures to safeguard these investments cannot be overstated.

We hope that these awards will encourage those who have excelled and inspire those who want to improve IT Security in their organisations."

The awards are spread across four categories including the best overall security strategy and implementation, best setup integrating compliance and security and effectiveness in raising IT awareness among employees.

The last date for entries/nominations is April 2, 2008 and the winners will be announced in the second quarter of the year. The evaluation will be conducted in four phases.

There will be detailed assessment of the solutions deployed, including a phase where nominations and case studies will be presented and discussed before a board.

Commenting on the awards, Sivarama Krishnan, executive director, PwC said, "It is encouraging to see the importance SMEs are giving to IT security in their companies.

With this initiative we hope to provide them a platform to share experiences and best practices. We believe that learning from the finest among them is the best way to improve in this extremely important area."

According to a recent Microsoft-AMI partners report on IT adoption in Indian SMEs over 36 per cent of the mid-market businesses surveyed had IT security as one of their key focus areas for the year.