If technological advancements are to deliver business benefits, they must be deployed and managed effectively by end-user organisations. But there would not be many technologies to manage or deploy were it not for the innovation efforts of the IT industry.

In 2009, Information Age launched its Innovation Awards to highlight some of the more innovative uses of technology developed by suppliers. Visitors to www.information-age.com were invited to vote on video submissions from our shortlisted companies, so the awards go to those products, projects or services that our readers consider to be the most innovative.

Here, we profile the winners of this year’s awards. More than 1,000 voters gave their thoughts on the video submissions, which this year were divided into three categories: security, business applications and the data centre.

The winning entrants range from a web-based security platform to a system that allows midwives to cut their paperwork, and together they demonstrate that even in chastened times, the IT industry continues to push technology forward.

Business Applications Innovation Award Winner

Research in Motion

The BlackBerry maker helped midwives at the Portsmouth NHS Trust maintain do their paperwork on the go

Security Innovation Award Winner

Webroot

Security vendor malware protection as a service

Data Centre Innovation Award Winner

Hitachi Data Systems

The hardware manufacturer built a scalable storage fabric for the cloud