Choice Hotels International, Lockton Companies and Metro Health Hospital Recognized by VMware

VMware’s Inaugural Innovation Awards Winners to be Celebrated for Exceptional Examples of Business Transformation at VMworld® 2013

PALO ALTO, Calif. – VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced its first Innovation Awards recognizing companies that have driven business innovation through the adoption of software-defined data center, workforce mobility, cloud, and workforce transformation strategies. After reviewing customer applicant submissions calling out the use of VMware solutions against strict criteria , a panel of Computerworld experts selected three winning companies – Choice Hotels, Lockton Companies and Metro Health Hospital.

“The VMware Innovation Awards recognize companies that have used technology not just as a utility, but also as a driver of business strategy during the past year,” said Robin Matlock, acting chief marketing officer, VMware. “In this new era of compute, adopting new technologies can increase collaboration, productivity and time-to-market. We are delighted these companies continue to raise their own bar.”

In the following categories, these three companies demonstrated increased efficiency and improved business processes amidst tough challenges:

Choice Hotels: Leveraging the Software-Defined Data Center – With more than 6,200 franchised hotels worldwide, Choice Hotels’ 25-year-old data center was quickly running out of capacity with regard to power, space and cooling. Migrating to a next-generation data center provided an instant value-add to stability, efficiency, consistency and scalability.
Lockton Companies: Enabling True Session Mobility – The world’s largest privately owned, independent insurance brokerage firm, Lockton Companies embarked on a mission to have the global company act as one to deliver the best service and value to its clients. Lockton deployed a private cloud to support a virtual desktop environment, among other things, enabling Lockton associates to access their personal desktop and applications with any device from anywhere at any time.
Metro Health Hospital: Transforming IT by Defying Convention – Metro Health Hospital had one goal – to enable secure, fast roaming access to a Metro Health user’s active virtual desktop in fewer than 10 seconds. The virtual desktop has significantly increased employee satisfaction scores within the health system.

Read comments from the 2013 VMware Innovation Awards Winners.

All award nominations were reviewed and rated by a panel of Computerworld-recruited experts, using the criteria outlined for each category. The winners will be honored on-stage at VMworld 2013 at Moscone Center in San Francisco (Aug. 25-29, 2013).

With more than 21,000 expected attendees, VMworld® 2013 will feature more than 300 unique breakout sessions from VMware and its community of partners and customers that are driving innovation in virtualization and cloud computing. On Aug. 26at 9am PDT, tune into VMware Now, the online destination for breaking news, product announcements, videos and demos at: http://vmware.com/go/now.


About VMware

VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2012 revenues of $4.61 billion, VMware has more than 500,000 customers and 55,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

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