NewsGator Names PointBridge Partner of the Year at Annual Collective User Group Meeting

DENVER, March 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- NewsGator today announced it has named long-time strategic partner PointBridge, an information technology consulting firm, as its 2011 Partner of the Year at the 2012 NewsGator Collective User Group Meeting. The Partner of the Year award recognizes PointBridge for its shared commitment to further the adoption of enterprise social computing based on the entire Microsoft stack.

In February 2012, PointBridge was acquired by Perficient, an industry leader in providing business-driven technology solutions to the Global 2000 and other large enterprise organizations. Perficient is a Microsoft National Systems Integrator (NSI) Partner and 2010 Microsoft Healthcare Provider Partner of the Year Award winner. PointBridge is also a Microsoft NSI Partner and was recently named the 2011 Microsoft Best New Partner of the Year for its growing presence in the Eastern U.S.

"PointBridge epitomizes what we consider a terrific partner for social business," said JB Holston, president and CEO of NewsGator. "They have become expert at everything from the underlying technologies through best business practices around enterprise social, including the user experience. PointBridge goes the extra mile, knows how to work with Microsoft, and ultimately always does what's best for the client. We are honored to award them this distinction and look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship going forward."

This year's Collective User Conference marks the debut of the NewsGator Partner of the Year award. NewsGator will honor one system integrator partner every year whose efforts have been key to the strategic advancement of enterprise social computing technology using NewsGator's Social Sites. The award recognizes excellence based on the quantity, quality, and speed of deployments in strategic vertical markets and geographies as well as development and delivery of the highest-quality integrated solutions utilizing Social Sites.

"We're delighted to be NewsGator's first ever Partner of the Year. PointBridge and NewsGator share the core values to which we run our businesses; this allows us to communicate and work together as one while providing a seamless experience for our clients," said Mike Gersten, general manager of Perficient's Microsoft East division and former PointBridge CEO. "Today, as we join forces with Perficient, we're able to deliver a more robust offering to our clients that impacts their business -- for the better -- on a daily basis. I look forward to growing our partnership further and continuing our successes. I'm excited to see what the future holds for collaborative technologies and what we can together bring to the market."

Jones Lang LaSalle, a financial and professional services firm specializing in real estate services and investment management based in Chicago has benefitted from the tight partnership between NewsGator and PointBridge. The company integrated the NewsGator Social Sites activity stream with the events happening in its Microsoft Dynamics CRM system to give its more than 40,000 employees around the world an integrated view of information they didn't have before.

Gregory Adams, EVP, managing director for Global Information Technology, at Jones Lang LaSalle said, "In a fast-paced business like global real estate and investments we don't have a lot of extra time to spend researching and implementing the technologies we need to make our business more efficient. PointBridge brought in NewsGator to fill an important need without any delay in our project and the two worked seamlessly together to make our integration happen so we could keep satisfying our clients -- that to me is the true essence of partnership."

About PointBridge
PointBridge is an IT consulting firm that specializes in building high-impact business solutions with Microsoft technology. In February 2012, PointBridge was acquired by Perficient, a leading information technology consulting firm serving Global 2000 and enterprise customers throughout North America. With its elite partner status with Microsoft, PointBridge has the depth and expertise to create swift, seamless and successful enterprise-wide solutions.

PointBridge focuses on connecting people to people and people to information with Microsoft technologies. Our areas of expertise include: Cloud Services, Information Management, Application Development, Unified Communications and Support Services.

About NewsGator
As a Microsoft Gold Certified and Depth Managed Partner, NewsGator is helping over three million paid users in industries across the globe propel the future of productivity. NewsGator Social Sites delivers robust social technology to the enterprise with proven scalability and security to flagship clients like Accenture, Adidas, Deloitte, Ericsson, General Mills, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Kraft Foods, Merck & Co., Unisys Corporation, and the US Army. No other social software vendor can rival our deep integration with the entire Microsoft stack -- reducing your total cost of ownership while increasing adoption, collaboration, and innovation. And for all that, Microsoft honored us as its 2011 US Partner of the Year. We're making SharePoint and Office365 social. Follow us on Twitter @newsgator and at www.newsgator.com.

SOURCE NewsGator Technologies, Inc.