Network Engines, Inc. (NASDAQ: NENG), a leading appliance partner for Microsoft security solutions, has been named Microsoft Corp.’s Partner of the Year in Security Solutions Sales and Marketing. The Microsoft Partner of the Year Award recognizes Microsoft Registered, Certified and Gold Certified partners that delivered exemplary solutions for their customers during the past year. Award winners were chosen from a group of finalists from around the world. Winners were announced at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference 2006, the company’s premier annual event for industry partners, held this year in Boston.

"We are honored to have received Microsoft’s Partner of the Year award in security solutions sales and marketing," said Greg Shortell, CEO of Network Engines. "The Security Solutions Awards recognize exceptional partners that have demonstrated expertise in providing the most advanced security solutions and services to protect their customers’ information assets and that is our goal here at Network Engines."

More than 2,400 entries were submitted by partners worldwide; the award winners were selected from a group of finalists based on their dedicated use of Microsoft technologies to provide solutions for their customers’ needs. Finalists for each category were chosen from defined regions of the world: Asia-Pacific; Canada; China; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); Latin America; Japan; and the United States.

The NS Series(TM) Security Appliances are a family of multi-function security platforms providing advanced application-layer firewall, VPN, and web cache functionality to maximize protection for core Microsoft infrastructure applications including Exchange Server, SharePoint(R) Portal Server, and Internet Information Services (IIS). Integrated with Websense(R) Web Security Suite(TM), the appliances are exceptional web proxies, accelerating access to frequently requested web content while blocking spyware, viruses, worms, and Trojan horses from infected websites.