A company that has developed a niche place for itself providing remote hosting of Microsoft applications and remote location computer file storage has won through to the last four finalists in a global contest.

Bermudiana Road-based eVolution has been selected as one of four finalists for Microsoft's Partner of the Year Award in advanced infrastructure solutions, hosting solutions.

The competition recognises top Microsoft Partners delivering market-leading, Microsoft-based solutions globally.

eVolution is doing that by providing a service for small and medium-sized companies to pay a flat fee of $99 per user per month to access Microsoft computer suite software, including the popular Office, Word and Excel programmes, from a remote server.

By doing so companies are able to save themselves tens of thousands of dollars that would otherwise be spent setting up their own server system.

And by using the remote turnkey service they have a secure site that is not subject to damage or power cuts. eVolution also take care of maintenance, file backup, storage, email, and anti-virus and anti-spam controls.

Rob Salmon, chief executive officer of eVolution, told the Royal Gazette: "It is great for people who travel and it takes take of a lot of the pain of working with computers."

Neither Hurricane Fabian, Hurricane Florence or the Belco fire power caused disruption to the remote servers used by eVolution, customers who plugged into it from around the world, as far away as New Zealand and Singapore, had no inkling that anything was amiss in Bermuda at the time.

That seemless operation is making eVolution's service a winner. And with the prospect of even greater exposure as a result of being in the Microsoft contest final, the company is looking to expand across the Caribbean and Central America region.

Microsoft's Partner of the Year awards will be presented in a number of categories, with winners chosen from a pool of more than 1,800 entrants worldwide. The category in which eVolution is vying recognises "demonstrated innovation and commitment to engaging with Microsoft."

To win a company will have identified and targeted a new market opportunity using the latest version of Microsoft products, and will have demonstrated technical, business and marketing innov>tion.

eVolution took off-the-shelf Microsoft products and formed a unique bundle to create its service.

"Clients go to our web site, put in their password and get access to all the packages and a place to store their files. They can do that from anywhere in the world," said Mr. Salmon.

"We are delighted to have been nominated. Our partnership with Microsoft dates back to 1994 and this nomination is a great recognition to the hard work we have put in to developing eVolution.

"We now have a one-in-four chance to win. We are up against some big companies but we offer something that is unique — we are driving down the cost of computing for small businesses, driving down the cost of Microsoft applications."

He added: "eVolution is very excited and proud of its team and the chance of winning for Bermuda."

Allison Watson, corporate vice president, Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, said: "We have a diverse and talented partner ecosystem that each year raises the bar in the design and deployment of customer solutions built on Microsoft technologies.

"We are pleased to recognise eVolution as one of our partners leading the field in this category."

Whatever the outcome of the competition eVolution's service is set to expand across the region and possibly further. It is already a multi-lingual service with English, French and Spanish capability.

Winners will be announced July 11 in Denver, Colorado, at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.