Nexaweb scored top marks for innovation and ease of integration from the judging panel. The Nexaweb Enterprise Web 2.0 Suite enables professional application architects, developers and designers to collaboratively build, deploy and maintain Web-based applications.

The composite application product, which shipped in September 2007, brags an average retention of 65% of the original application logic, reduction of development time by 50%, decrease of application maintenance by 90% and deployment costs by 70%.

"This is the way to build an application," one judge wrote. "Honestly, I'm not sure why everyone isn't using a tool like Nexaweb. It makes your developers more productive and it supports the tenets of service orientation."

Nexaweb features a visual editor for the creation of complete applications and application elements. Using the drag-and-drop format, developers can select user interface widgets from a palette; place them on a canvas; bind them with internal, external and third-party data services; test and preview the application in a browser. The snap-to-grid feature ensures automatic alignment of the widgets, allowing them to be moved, resized and placed in containers with ease.

It combines the basic Ajax and Java development perspectives in a single list view for achieving specific tasks. The visual layout is streamlined through reorganization of menu items, offering a more intuitive structure. New Web service testing tools and help wizards support SOA integration (including governance interoperability), enabling developers to meet the challenges associated with application accessibility and usability.

Pricing starts at $17,900.