Redmond’s Harbinger Knowledge Products, a global leader in interactive eLearning software, announced Jan. 21 that the company has been named a winner of Red Herring’s Global 100 award, a prestigious ranking that recognizes the most innovative new technology companies from around the world.

Red Herring’s Global 100 list has become a mark of distinction for identifying promising new companies and entrepreneurs. Making the list puts Harbinger in good company: Past winners have included such high-tech heavyweights as Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Skype, Netscape, Salesforce.com, and YouTube.

The Red Herring recognition is just the latest in a string of honors for Harbinger over the past year. The company also received Red Herring’s Asia 100 award and was named to Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific award for fast growing high-tech firms.

“Making Red Herring’s Global 100 technology list is a tremendous honor, and we feel privileged to be standing among the 100 most promising high-tech companies in the world,” said Vikas Joshi, chairman and managing director of Harbinger Group.

Joshi said the award is a recognition of the growing need for interactivity in education, training and communications. Harbinger’s cutting edge software lets teachers, presenters and web developers easily include fun and interesting interactive components in their curriculum, presentations and web sites.

“There’s a revolution taking place in distance learning as instructors and corporate trainers realize the importance of using interactivity to truly engage students and ensure that they retain information,” he said. “Red Herring’s award is a testament to this very important market for interactive educational technology.”

Harbinger accepted the Red Herring Global 100 award at a special ceremony in Laguna Niguel, Calif. last week during the media organization’s annual global conference. The CEOs of the 200 finalists presented their winning strategies during the three-day conference.

Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated the companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration. This assessment included a review of the track record and standing of startups relative to their sector peers, allowing Red Herring to “see past the buzz and make the list an invaluable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the greatest business opportunities from around the world,” the company said in a statement.

Winners for the 2009 edition of the Red Herring Global 100 award were selected from a list of the regional recipients or finalists of the Red Herring 100 awards in 2007, 2008 and 2009, ranging from Asia, Europe and North America.

“Choosing the best out of the previous three years was by no means a small feat,” said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. “After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed down our list from 1,200 potential companies to 200 finalists. Trying to get it down to 100 companies was a task upon itself. The top 100 companies who were chosen should be extremely proud, the competition was difficult.”