The InfoWorld OS/2 Vote Invalidation Incident

Background
InfoWorld is a powerful publication that claims to be "The Voice of Client/Server in the Enterprise". Every year, InfoWorld conducts their Readers' Survey Awards. They allow all of the readers of their print edition to vote for products in different categories. This was done by providing ballots with the publication. For a number of years, OS/2 continued to win Product Of The Year. In 1996 (the vote for 1995 readers' choice products), this ballot was moved to the world wide web to their InfoWorld Electric readers. Once again OS/2 won Product Of The Year. InfoWorld has told me that they believe these polls to be valid and that they meet InfoWorld's high standards.

In 1997 (the vote for 1996 products), OS/2 won by an overwhelming margin. Editor In Chief, Sandy Reed, chose to invalidate the poll and explained her reasoning in this editorial. InfoWorld then activated a discussion forum on their web site to discuss this. I do not have an archive of that particular forum so you'll have to trust my memory on this next comment. Ms. Reed told us that she invalidated the poll because the results did not correspond to market share (please remember this when seeing the results of her new poll). While I agree Ms. Reed had good reason to suspect the poll, I do not believe she had reason to invalidate it. Rather than investigate the matter for "stuffing" by looking at who voted and how often they voted, she simply considered it invalid. She then refused to release the results to back up her claims.

InfoWorld conducted another poll via telephone. In this poll Windows NT cleaned up (remember the market share issue from the previous paragraph). Ms. Reed produced this editorial where she spent an excessive amount of time telling us how poorly OS/2 did (unlike those other years of polling that meet InfoWorld's high standards). InfoWorld then made this forum available to discuss the issue. In the forum, it was revealed that 300 subscribers (of over 300,000) the print edition were called. It was also revealed that any subscriber that worked for a hardware company, worked for a software company, or considered themselves an IT professional was disqualified. Also note, InfoWorld Electric subscribers were not called (unless they happened to be a subscriber to the print edition as well). As you can imagine, this created quite a stir in the new forum (which I do have an archive of). To date, InfoWorld has refused to release details (exact instructions given to the polling firm and exact results received) of the new poll.

On a personal note, I believe InfoWorld has a strong Microsoft bias. While they are quick to criticize Microsoft, they at least report on them. On the few occasions that other platforms are reported on, they are compared to Microsoft. As an example there were two press releases published by InfoWorld Electric during the week of the forum. This one for IBM's BlueBird should be good news. However, InfoWorld takes it upon themselves to talk about the narrow focus (which is unjustified). They then attack it for not being Windows NT compatible. They also be sure to note that Microsoft will be releasing Windows NT 5.0 with the Zero Administration Kit sometime in the future. On the other hand this press release published by InfoWorld Electric for the coming Windows NT 5.0 Zero Administration kit makes no mention of Blue Bird. It makes no mention of not being OS/2 32-bit compatible. It makes no mention of it's narrow focus (NT has a smaller installed base than OS/2). A bias? I think so.

On another note, I find it interesting that although NetScape Navigator wins the Internet catagory (with 4.6 times as many votes), they feel it necessary to tell us "browsers are on the verge of disappearing into the operating system, so surfing the World Wide Web soon won't be any more significant than surfing your hard drive." A very subjective (bias?) opinion thrown in to make Navigator's win over Windows NT to be meaningless.

InfoWorld wanted Windows to come out on top no matter what. They did it.

InforWorld - Help us reclaim Readers' Choice Product of the Year awards from OS/2 zealots