Builder.com Readers' Choice Awards: The winners

by Lamont Adams | Aug 01, 2002 7:00:00 AM

Takeaway: The voting is over and the results are in. Find out who won Builder.com's Readers' Choice Awards for Best Java IDE, Application Server, and Linux IDE.

Well, voting has closed on our first annual Builder.com Readers' Choice Awards, and we’re pleased with the response. The votes have been tallied, and we’re ready to announce the winners in all seven categories. The usual industry “heavies”—Borland, Microsoft, and Macromedia—each made strong showings in at least one category. But there were some surprises here and there. I'll start with the Java categories and wrap up with Web and Windows development tools in a second article.

Best Java IDE: Borland JBuilder 6
Java has a wealth of IDEs available, and everyone seems to have a favorite, so I was very interested in how voting played out in this category. I wasn’t surprised by the winner so much as the margin of victory: Borland JBuilder 6 pulled in 46.4 percent of our members’ votes, and takes home our award for Best Java IDE by what I think could safely be called a landslide. Rounding out the top three were Sun’s Forte/One Studio with 9.5 percent and Oracle 9i JDeveloper with 8.5 percent.


	JBuilder Borland JBuilder, $399 for Standard Edition, Free trial Complete 100% Java IDE with refactoring, team development, and JDK switching support. E-mail the editors with comments
First runner-up:	Sun Forte/ONE Studio, Sun Microsystems
Second runner-up:	Oracle 9i JDeveloper, Oracle

Best Java IDE results

If you voted for JBuilder as Best Java IDE, please send us an e-mail explaining your choice.

Best Java Application Server: Apache Tomcat
There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of Java Application Servers out there either, so which one’s the best?

With 28.7 percent of the vote, Apache Tomcat earns the 2002 Builder.com Readers' Choice Award for Best Java Application Server. Our first runner-up in this category was Borland Enterprise Server, with 17.9 percent, while IBM WebSphere Application Server 4 finished as second runner-up with 10.3 percent of members’ votes.


	Tomcat Apache Jakarta Project, Free Open-source implementation of the J2EE container specification E-mail the editors with comments
First runner-up:	Borland Enterprise Server, Borland
Second runner-up:	WebSphere Application Server, IBM

Best Java Application Server results

We’d like to hear from members who voted for Tomcat, so send us an e-mail and explain why you thought it deserved the Best Java Application Server award.

Best Linux Development Tool: Borland Kylix 2
Borland wrapped up a double play by taking home our Best Linux Development Tool award for Kylix in yet another landslide. Kylix finished with 50 percent of the final vote. I was mildly surprised to see KDE Studio finish as first runner-up with 14.4 percent in our Linux category, slightly ahead of Metrowerks CodeWarrior for Linux with 12.4 percent. It’s interesting to note that these three tools accounted for over 75 percent of the votes cast in this category, so obviously these companies are doing something right.


	Kylix Borland Kylix, $249 new user Rapid application development for Linux E-mail the editors with comments
First runner-up:	KDE Studio, theKompany.com
Second runner-up:	CodeWarrior for Linux, Metrowerks

Best Linux IDE results

If you like Kylix and voted for it as Best Linux Development Tool, we definitely want to hear from you. Send us an e-mail describing the reasons for your vote.

To be continued…
Here’s a riddle for you: What are four ways that the Builder.com Readers' Choice Awards are better than the Oscars?