Introduction WINNERS BY INDUSTRY Education | Financial services | Government | Healthcare | Manufacturing | Transportation | Hospitality | More WINNERS BY TECHNOLOGY Applications | Convergence | E-commerce | Management | Security | Servers | Storage | WAN | Wireless | Download complete list of winners John Gallant on being an All-Star

In 1933, Chicago's Comiskey Park hosted the first major league All-Star game, showcasing the talents of such baseball greats as Charlie Gehringer and Babe Ruth. That legendary game launched an American tradition, as all-star matchups became an annual highlight of the pro basketball and football seasons, too. In the spirit of this tradition, Network World has created the Enterprise All-Star Award, which honors companies with technology projects so stellar they belong in a league of their own.

The 50 companies presented here are Enterprise All-Star Award winners for two basic reasons. First, they have demonstrated exceptional use of technology within an industry segment - education, financial services, government, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, transportation and others. Second, their IT projects demonstrate how smart use of technology is smart business. For instance, the All-Star winners that reported savings expect to bank $161.5 million collectively from their projects one year after implementation - and $469.4 million by the third year.

As impressive as these figures are, only about half the winners named cost-cutting as a primary objective. Others were more concerned with increasing competitive advantage or bringing on next-generation applications. For instance, Parkview Health System, a healthcare network serving northeast Indiana, earned its place on the list for building a SONET network that gave it "Niagara Falls-size" bandwidth. The SONET net will carry new lifesaving applications such as a virtual monitoring service for intensive care patients.

A project didn't have to be high budget to earn a place on the list. Budgets ranged from $30,000 to $32 million; $640,000 was the median. Of the winners that reported savings, about 60% said ROI would hit 100% within the first year, with half saying ROI would be more than 200% in that time. Only two winners said they did not expect their investment to be fully paid for in hard-dollar savings by the three-year mark (but did expect impressive productivity gains). The message is clear: Even when projects cost millions of dollars, smart ones quickly pay for themselves.