For the past 15 years, the Software Development Jolt Product Excellence and Productivity Awards have been presented annually to showcase products that have "jolted" the industry with their significance and made the task of creating software faster, easier, and more efficient. Jolt Cola, the fabled soft drink quaffed by software developers for sustenance during project development marathons, sponsors the awards presentation. "Our twenty Jolt judges - leaders in the software development field - have selected 89 impressive finalists from hundreds of nominations," commented Software Development Technical Editor Rosalyn Lum. "The number of nominations we received this year was unprecedented and the process of narrowing down the finalists was a massive, albeit exciting, task, with many more products contending in each category. These products represent a cross section of the most ground-breaking tools for every phase of the software development lifecycle - a testament that the spirit of innovation is alive and well in the software development sector. [The winners] are products that are: ahead of the curve; universally useful; simple, yet rich in functionality; redefine their product space; or solve a nagging problem that has consistently eluded other products and books."