LinuxWorld Magazine put together for the awards a distinguished panel of judges, including: Kevin Bedell, editor in chief for LinuxWorld Magazine; Bill Claybrooke, LinuxWorld.com author and industry analyst at New River Linux; Gary Hein, vice president and service director for Application Platform Strategies at the Burton Group; Sam Hiser, marketing project co-lead for OpenOffice.org; Dee-Ann LeBlanc, Linux author, consultant and trainer and LinuxWorld Magazine's Gaming Industry Editor; Robin "Roblimo" Miller, editor in chief for OSDN; Paul Nowak, CIO for the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE); Brian Proffitt, managing editor for Linux Today, LinuxPlanet and JustLinux; Stacey Quandt, industry analyst at Quandt Analytics; Bill Roth, senior technical evangelist at E.phiphany; Doc Searls, senior editor for Linux Journal; Leon Shiman, president of Shiman Associates and member of the Board of Directors for X.org; John Terpstra, mentor on the Samba Project; James Turner, senior editor for LinuxWorld Magazine; Maria Winslow, open source business analyst; and John Weathersby, executive director of the Open Source Software Institute.

The finalists for the LinuxWorld Product Excellence Awards, which will be presented today in 13 separate categories and recognize the best products and services showcased on the exhibit floor at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, include:

Best Data Backup or Storage Solution
PolyServe, Inc: PolyServe NAS Cluster Solution
Storix, Inc: System Backup Administrator
Computer Associates: BrightStor ARCserve Backup

Best Database Solution
Computer Associates: Ingres
Oracle: Oracle Database 10g
IBM: IBM DB2 Universal Database
Object Web: C-JDBC
Voltaire: TerraGrid DBScale

Best Open Source Solution
Mozilla Foundation: Mozilla FireFox
Computer Associates: Ingres
Novell: Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9
Gentoo Linux: Gentoo Linux 2004.2

Best Utility/Grid Computing Solution
IBM: IBM Deep Computing Capacity on Demand
Topspin Communications: Topspin Utility Computing Solution, featuring VFrameT software suite
VMWare: VMWare GSX 3.1
Emic Networks: Emic Application Cluster 2.0

Best Security Solution
NetIQ: NetIQ Vulnerability Manager 5.0
Novell: Novell Nsure
Astaro: Astaro Security Linux

Best Productivity/Business Application
Sun Microsystems: StarOffice and Migration Tools
Novell: Novell Evolution 2.0 / GroupWise
KDE: Quanta Plus
Hummingbird Ltd: Exceed onDemand 4.5
Computer Associates: BrightStor Document Manager

Best Messaging Solution
Mozilla Foundation: Mozilla Thunderbird
Barracuda Networks: Barracuda Spam Firewall 600
Novell: GroupWise 6.5 for Linux, Evolution and Gaim
Stalker Software: Communigate Pro v4.2 Real-Time Communication

Best Application Development Platform or Tool
Red Hat: Red Hat Application Server
Novell: Mono
Parasoft: Insure++
Sun Microsystems: Sun Java Studio Creator

Best Systems Management Tools
Novell: ZENworks Linux Management
Black Duck Software: protexIP/development
RLX Technologies: RLX Control Tower 6G
Xandros, Inc: Xandros Desktop Management Server

Best Embedded Solution
IBM: IBM Cloudscape V10.0
Trolltech: Qtopia Phone Edition

Best Clustering Solution
Red Hat: Red Hat Global File System
IBM: IBM Departmental Supercomputing Solutions
Penguin Computing: Scyld Beowulf

Most Innovative Hardware Solution
Rackable Systems: Rackable Systems Scale Out Server Series
E28 Limited: E2800+
Sun Microsystems: Sun Ray Thin Client

Best Integration Solution
Alacos: Linux Migration Agent Professional
Novell: exteNd Suite 5.2
Veritas: Storage Foundation 4.0

There will also be a Best of Show award. Most of the finalists and winners will subsequently be interviewed on SYS-CON Radio, which as ever is present at LinuxWorld San Francisco this year to bring LinuxWorld.com readers live audio interviews with the movers and shakers of the open source and Linux worlds.