Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) has announced the winners of the seventh annual Emerging Technology Showcase (ETS) awards. More than 250 senior-level IT attendees, technology investors, and Forrester analysts recognized five companies for their cutting-edge technologies at the recently concluded three-day event in Scottsdale, Ariz. Last week’s event featured demonstrations and discussions on emerging technologies, their market viability, and their impact on business.

“ETS provides a unique opportunity to see live demos of creative and innovative technologies in hot categories,” said Mike Gilpin, vice president and research director at Forrester. “This year, we added a new dimension that focused on demos of leading- and bleeding-edge technologies from research labs of large companies and smaller, venture-funded startups. All of the presenters were judged on the value of their business application, and many of them have already begun to bring real value to the marketplace.”

This year, more than 20 entrepreneurial and established companies presented at ETS. Their demonstrations were followed by evaluations from a panel of Forrester analysts, CIOs, and industry experts, along with an instant audience vote that scored the innovation, business potential, and quality of each demonstration. This year, the following companies were recognized as the overall winners in their category or TechnoVista:

  • RFID And X Internet. This category included demos on hardware, networking, and software technology that help firms intelligently incorporate auto-identification into their business applications. This year¿s winner, RF Code, demonstrated the Tavis software program, which provides a management framework for data collection, filtering, and consolidation.
  • Customer And Product Data Integration. This group delivered demos on innovative ways of integrating customer and product data, such as the creation of data grids. This year¿s winner, n-tara, demonstrated the n-vision product, a guided sales presentation that can be quickly updated by a marketing department without waiting for IT availability.
  • Innovative Communications Technology. This TechnoVista featured multimode, real-time communication platforms with collaboration support and presence awareness. Citrix Online topped out the list with GoToMeeting, a cost-effective solution for conducting online meetings.
  • Security. These presenters showcased security products that prevent present threats like spam and phishing. This year’s winner, Adobe, presented LiveCycle_Policy Server, a client/server enterprise document control solution that creates and maintains secure documents.

In the special session titled The Leading And The Bleeding Edge: Research Labs And Venture-Funded Startups, Intel and Microsoft showcased the latest research on disruptive and category-defining trends. The session also featured venture capital demos like 3-D graphics, automated tailoring of custom garments, video, and real-time collaboration. This year’s winner, Virtual-Mirrors Ltd., demonstrated technology that automates the production of custom clothes and allows consumers to see highly realistic virtual previews of themselves wearing the clothes before they are made.