InfoWorld's 2009 Technology of the Year Awards

Apple and Microsoft topped the list of InfoWorld's annual product award winners this year, nabbing three and four Technology of the Year Awards, respectively. Announced today, InfoWorld's 2009 Technology of the Year Awards recognize the best hardware and software products evaluated by InfoWorld reviewers during 2008.

Microsoft's four prizes include two for development tools and two for small-business solutions. Best Integrated Development Environment went to the matchless Visual Studio 2008, while Best Rich Internet Application Platform went to Silverlight 2 -- which shares the award with Adobe Flash, Flex, and AIR. We don't like ties, but we're so impressed with the Microsoft and Adobe offerings that we couldn't choose between them.

[ Take a slideshow tour of InfoWorld's 2009 Technology of the Year Award winners in Applications, Middleware, and Data Management | Application Development | Platforms and Virtualization | Systems and Storage | Networking and Security ]

Microsoft knows developers, and clearly Microsoft knows small businesses too. Combining enterprise-class functionality and supreme ease of use, Small Business Server 2008 -- our Best Small Business Server -- had the SMB formula down to an art form. Microsoft also won Best Small Office VoIP System for the brilliantly simple Response Point. It's short on sophistication but long on ease of administration and ease of use.

If it weren't for the supremacy of Oracle Database, the impressive SQL Server 2008 release would have landed Microsoft a fifth award. But our prize for Best Database went to the incomparable Oracle Database 11g, a titanic release with capabilities -- namely Real Application Testing and Active Data Guard -- that DBAs previously could only dream about.