New York, New York - (The Hosting News) - May 6, 2008 - Global business technology event series, Interop, and multimedia business technology brand, InformationWeek, have announced that Palo Alto Networks is the Grand Prize Winner of the 2008 Best of Interop Awards.

In a ceremony held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, also selected were the Best of Interop winners in eight categories, including Mellanox Technologies, Palo Alto Networks, Splunk, spigit, Mitel, AirMagnet Inc., with Cisco winning in two categories.

The finalists for the 2008 Best of Interop Awards were hand-selected by InformationWeek's panel of expert judges. Each year, Best of Interop winners prove to be the key players in the continuing evolution of business technology.

Art Wittmann, Editor of InformationWeek noted, ''The Best of Interop Awards are always an indicator of the most innovative and exciting offerings in these product categories, and this year's winners are no exception. Palo Alto Networks and each of the category winners have truly demonstrated superior technology and innovation, and deserve recognition for their contributions to the industry.''

Lenny Heymann, General Manager at Interop remarked, ''With the increase in exhibitors this year, competition was especially tough for the Best of Interop Awards. We congratulate Palo Alto Networks for their contributions and demonstrating Interop is the leading business technology event to come see the exciting and latest advancements in the industry.''

The 2008 Best of Interop Awards winners in each category are: -- Data Center and Storage: Mellanox Technologies -- Infrastructure: Cisco -- Network and Application Performance Optimization: Cisco -- Network Management, Software and Services: Splunk -- Security: Palo Alto Networks -- Software: spigit -- VoIP and Collaboration: Mitel -- Wireless and Mobility: AirMagnet Inc. In addition to these eight category winners, two special awards were also awarded: -- Best Startup: Vidyo, Inc. -- Green Award: Foundry Networks.

InformationWeek is a multimedia Business Technology brand -- online sites, magazine, events and research -- providing CIOs and IT decision makers with unique perspective and tools that work in lock step with their decision making process -- from the setting of business strategies to the evaluation and recommendation of technology solutions. Through its cross-media platform, InformationWeek provides editorial content developed by both journalists and CIO and IT peers delivered when and how they want it, 24/7. The InformationWeek audience of 3 million buyers, includes CIOs, IT executives and business managers who cut across industries, job titles, company sizes and global borders.

As the meeting place for the global business technology community, upcoming Interop events include Interop Tokyo 2008, June 9-13, 2008, Mukahari Messe, Tokyo, Interop Sao Paulo, August 12-14, 2008, Transamerica Expo Center, and Interop New York, September 15-19, 2008 Javits Convention Center, New York City . For more information about these events, visit http://www.interop.com.

TechWeb is a business technology media company, focused on serving the needs of technology decision-makers and marketers worldwide. TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed media brands in the business technology market. Over 13.3 million business technology professionals actively engage in our communities created around our global face-to-face events Interop, Web 2.0, Black Hat and VoiceCon; online resources such as the TechWeb Network, Light Reading, Intelligent Enterprise, InformationWeek.com, bMighty.com, and The Financial Technology Network; and the market leading, award-winning InformationWeek, TechNet Magazine, MSDN Magazine, Wall Street and Technology magazines. TechWeb also provides end-to-end services ranging from next-generation performance marketing, integrated media, research, and analyst services. TechWeb is a division of United Business Media, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

Interop's goals is to drive the adoption of technology, providing knowledge and insight to help IT and corporate decision-makers achieve business success. Part of TechWeb's family of global brands, Interop is the leading business technology event series. Through in-depth educational programs, workshops, real-world demonstrations and live technology implementations in its unique InteropNet and InteropLabs programs, Interop provides the forum for the most powerful innovations and solutions the industry has to offer.

For more information about TechWeb, please visit: www.techweb.com.

To learn more, please visit: www.interop.com.