f we had allowed all of Microsoft's employees to vote, you surely would have cried foul. Remember that InfoWorld is written for IS managers in various businesses -- but not the IT industry (software developers, chip makers, and systems manufacturers, and the like). We try to let our target readers vote -- once a year -- on the products that they choose and use. We disqualified all vendors -- big and small. I don't see how that makes our conclusions less statistically valid given who we say our audience is.
What then about small companies that just happen to also produce software (such as ComputerLink Online Inc., my employer), which has absolutely no stake in your poll what-so-ever, and does more work on their internal network than software development? It seems that these people are very much your target audience - or do you think that the only people who benifit from information on client/server systems are those who aren't in the computer industry?
I'm sorry, but your methods this time still smack as worse than earlier this year. You wind up polling people who don't necessarily know anything about the subject matter - and you get the response of what InfoWorld says is the best in their day-to-day reporting. As the French would say, "Quelle Suprise".
After the first debacle, I said to myself "The system was broken, and InfoWorld screwed up royally in their handling of it. Let's stick around and give them the chance to redeem themselves by doing it right the second time". Well InfoWorld, you've come to bat for the second time this year, and for the seond time you've let this reader down. The only solution as I see it is for this reader to let InfoWorld down...
Brad Barclay,
OS/2 Development Director,
ComputerLink Online Inc. (Internet Direct)
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