We asked you to choose the products that helped you to do your job effectively. Developer.com wanted to recognize the technologies and products that significantly influenced the work done by programmers. In addition to the existing nine categories, this year we added an Open Source category to reflect the influence those products have on the computer industry. Last years results held more surprises than we expected. We were not sure what to expect this year. Overall, hundreds of products were nominated.
The nominations were narrowed down for a final voting. The finalists were presented and the voting took place in December to determine the winners within each category. In January the results were tallied and the winners were determined!
This year the computer programming market saw just a few major new releases. Our winner's list has three repeats and fewer surprises than last year's contest. That may be a reflection of the computer industry today. There have been numerous announcements for numerous future releases this year, but few new significant releases themselves.
Without further delay we congratulate the winners of the Developer.com Product of the Year 2003:
Technology of the Year
The technology category covers a wide area. Technology is a broad category, so it is no surprise that the finalists covered standards, general technologies, a framework, a platform, and more.. In 2003, however, it popular choice was that the wireless 802.11 has had the biggest impact on the industry.
With an entry point of less than $100 to add wireless 802.11, it comes as no surprise that this technology moved to the forefront in 2003. 802.11 has also proliferated due to its implementation within hotels, restaurants, and other public places. In fact, there are now web sites such as www.wi-fihotspotlist.com that are dedicated to showing where such hot spots exist.
802.11g and other 802.11 wireless standards receive the Developer.com Product of the Year 2003- Technology of the Year.
The Technology of the Year finalists were:
- BEA WebLogic Platform
- Blogging
- Eclipse
- Java Card
- NetBeans Platform
- Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) and Basic Profile 1.0 (BP1.0)
Development Tool of the Year
The tool in this category is the meat and potatoes of a developer's arsenal. This is the tool that they rely on the most to complete their work. It is not a surprise that the finalists in this category included the high profile companies such as Sun, IBM, and Microsoft.
This year we have a tie. Bradley Jones, Executive Editor of EarthWeb's Software Development channel, stated "The voting for the Development tool of the year was just too close to call, thus we have to give it to both Sun and Microsoft!"
This year Microsoft released a new version of their Visual Studio .NET tool. This new tool included a number of features such as the integration of Visual J#, the ability to create mobile applications in much the same way as desktop and web applications, better ISO standards compliance with Visual C++ .NET, the inclusion of a Visual Basic upgrading wizard, and much more.
The other winner, Sun Java Studio was recognized for a number of its key features as well. It delivers a complete accelerated development environment based on a Model-View-Controller based application framework and associated tools, supporting Enterprise tier features including EJB and Web Services interaction models, necessary for larger full-scale deployments.
Sun Java Studio (formerly Sun ONE Studio) and
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 receive the Developer.com Product of the Year 2003- Development Tool.
The Development Tool of the Year finalists were:
- BEA WebLogic Platform
- Borland C#Builder
- Computer Associates Advantage Plex
- Compuware DevPartner Studio
- IBM WebSphere Studio v5.1
- JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA
Enterprise Development Tool of the Year
In the Enterprise Development Tool category the finalist were from three major companies, although one, Eclipse, is an open product. One interesting tidbit this year was the nomination of two product subscriptions. The MSND Universal Subscription from Microsoft and the IBM developerWorks Toolbox Subscription form IBM were both heavily nominated and both are finalists.
Although it was too close to call for the general developer tool of the year, Visual Studio .NET 2003 was the clear winner of the top position in the Enterprise Development tool category.
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 receives the Developer.com Product of the Year 2003- Enterprise Development Tool.
The Enterprise Development Tool of the Year finalists were:
- BEA WebLogic Platform
- Eclipse
- IBM developerWorks Toolbox Subscription
- IBM WebSphere Application Developer
- MSDN Universal Subscription
- Sun J2EE
- Sun Java Studio (formerly Sun ONE Studio)
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