Dear OM -- I'm sorry you didn't see in Sandy's column or our article that Big Name Computer Company (as well as Mid-Name Computer Company, and Small Fry Computer Company) were not part of the Readers' Choice Survey. As I mentioned above, this was a telephone survey, it did not run in the pages of InfoWorld or on InfoWorld Electric.
Here's why we chose readers outside the IT field: Say Big Name Computer Company finds out that its product is being considered for this award, and suggests to all of its employees, suppliers, and business partners that a smart thing to do would be to be sure to vote for its product. HMMM. What if it even offered a financial incentive to the employee who got the most votes cast. All legitimate votes, of course.
We wanted to eliminate any bias. End of story. Did we throw out the OS/2 results and keep the first survey? Nope. Whole new survey, same old ballot.
Rachel Parker
Guest Host
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