Red Hat UK's favourite software supplier - ISPA awards

Britain's ISP industry has voted Linux distributor Red Hat as its favourite software supplier. Linux was also honoured at the annual ISPAs (Internet Service Provider Awards) in London on Wednesday.

At a gala dinner and awards ceremony, 600 of the UK's Internet industry's most distinguished representatives voted for their favourites.

Head of the Free Software Foundation and author of the General Public License (GNU Project), Richard Stallman, made an appearance to accept the award on behalf of the Linux movement.

Red Hat received the title of Best Software Supplier by delegates. Vice president of Red Hat Europe, Colin Tenwick, is understandably delighted by the endorsement, but sees the award as a boost for the open source movement as a whole.

"This is brilliant news," says Tenwick. "It's a major endorsement for open source and Linux as the major forces in powering the Web. It's also further endorsement that Red Hat is the leader in e-commerce."

Tenwick sees this award as evidence that companies are beginning to acknowledge the technical benefits of Linux. He continues: "Over the years, we've continued to show the benefits of Linux in terms of cost, stability, productivity and durability."

However, Tenwick can't help adding that "there are significant technical advantages to using Red Hat" over other brands of Linux.

The winners of the ISPA 2000 Internet Industry Awards are as follows:

Best E-commerce Service Offered by an ISP -- Netbanx

Best ISP Product -- Easynet Dial

Best Business Customer Service -- Netcom Internet

Most Innovative New ISP Product -- Online Call Manager

Best European ISP -- UUNET

Best Business ISP -- Planet Online

Best ISP Web Site -- Freenetname

Most Useful Software to an ISP -- Linux

Best Software Supplier -- Red Hat

Best Consumer Customer Service -- Totalise

Best Consumer ISP -- Freeserve

Internet Colossus 2000 -- Peter Gregory

Best Value ISP -- Stray Duck

Best Hardware Supplier -- Cisco

Best Service Supplier -- GX Networks

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