By Kevin O'Toole, Senior Vice President Product Management, Comcast Business

I always enjoy opportunities to talk about Comcast Business products because it's easy to get excited around how we're executing against our vision of delivering innovative solutions for business – solutions designed to help companies across the country go beyond the expected.

From providing the world's best last-mile data products and leading-edge enterprise networking solutions, to offering managed services, voice, video and digital experiences that are fundamentally changing the way businesses operate, Comcast Business is making a big difference in helping companies succeed in the digital world.

While awards and trophies will always come secondary to that primary goal of helping customers, I was delighted to learn that the fruits of our labor and the way we are implementing our product vision have captured the attention of executives from around the country.

On June 11, Comcast Business will be honored at the 17th Annual American Business Awards® banquet, where we will receive seven awards for our innovation and product solutions, including a Gold Award for the Most Innovative Company of the Year and other recognitions for our ActiveCore(sm) and Business VoiceEdge® solutions.

One of seven programs sponsored by The Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards® are the only national, all-encompassing business awards program in the U.S. They feature a wide variety of categories to recognize achievement in every facet of the workplace, from customer service and management to public relations and product development. Award winners are selected by a panel of 200 executives across the country.

In honoring us with the Gold award, judges noted that Comcast Business "showed it's moving with today's fast tech world by introducing products and solutions that combine technologies and ultimately streamline our digital world."

Executives judging the awards also bestowed Gold Awards on our:

• IT Service Management Solution Award for ActiveCore(sm), which judges singled out for "great thinking" that is "future-proof" and "replac[es] legacy technologies at a huge scale."
• Telecommunications Service Award for Business VoiceEdge™, a "frustration-free" solution that "makes employees' jobs easier" and is a "fantastic solution for distributed teams and telecommuting," according to the judges.
• Integration Solution for ActiveCore, which the judges said is a "great example of a solution that businesses need right now."

We also will receive:

• A Silver Award in the Cloud Platform category for ActiveCore, which judges hailed as "a great end-to-end solution for IT systems management" and a "brilliant way to upgrade clients on outdated infrastructure to the latest benefits of virtualized networks."
• A Bronze Award in the Business Services Innovation of the Year category for ActiveCore's Voice Commands, which judges called "modern," "consumer friendly," and "a tremendous way to open the doors to other businesses in small communities."
• A Bronze Award in the Most Innovative Tech Company category, for our "significant business value" and its "numerous solutions to help make business easier."

We are tremendously proud that Comcast Business stood out from the intense competition among the 3,800-plus nominations received. We are especially honored that executives from a range of industries recognize the generational moment that our ActiveCore Software-Defined Networking platform represents, and the ability of its gigabit-ready, digital experience to change the way everyone thinks about network and IT management. We've driven a tremendous amount of innovation in the last couple of years and there is certainly more to come.