Winner Walker Wireless
Walker Wireless, now renamed Woosh Wireless, is emerging as one of New Zealand’s most promising hi-tech enterprises pushing the communications advantages of broadband wireless technologies. The company was established in 1999 to meet the emerging demand for faster, more efficient information transfer. Despite some heavyweight competition it has attracted some equally heavyweight financial backing, including Todd Capital, Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall, Craig Heatley, and strategic partners including Vodafone. Walker, or rather Woosh, is now rolling out national wireless communication network and working with government agencies on Project Probe to provide regional broadband services to schools and communities in rural New Zealand.
Finalist Formway Furniture
In some respects Formway Furniture has already emerged as an enterprise. It has been around for more than 20 years and two thirds of it annual $40-million plus in sales is generated from exports. In other respects the company is just starting to build the kind of international reputation it needs to become truly significant global enterprise. At the heart of Formway’s success is its commitment and ability to produce world-beating furniture designs combining functionality with aesthetics, such as its revolutionary state-of-the-ergonomic-art Life chair which it is marketing worldwide in partnership with US-based furniture manufacturer Knoll. The company expects dramatic increase in sales as result of the partnership and is already working on the next global joint venture. This is an enterprise that is not sitting down on the job or feeling too comfortable about the successes it has already had.
Finalist Wellington Drive Technologies
An emerging and fledgling enterprise, Wellington Drive Technologies is very small horsepower compared with the others in this category. Manufacturing high efficiency brushless electric motors on Auckland’s North Shore the company’s management believes that, despite the fact it hasn’t yet turned profit, it will soon crack major international markets and drive its competition onto the back foot. The company’s proprietary technology enables it to manufacture engines without noise and vibration that are smaller than similar low noise engine designs. The company has 10 years of research and patent applications behind it and has now begun manufacturing its revolutionary engines locally. It now has saleable products and designs and not just great ideas, according to its backers.
