Readers Choice
By Jerry Coffey
Shuffling the Deck
Delphi Informant Magazine Readers Choice Awards 2003
Last year's Readers Choice Awards seemed to indicate that, after many years of volatility, the pace of change had slowed significantly in the Delphi third-party tools marketplace. For example, in the 25 categories last year, 19 featured repeat winners from the previous year.
Then TurboPower Software dropped a bombshell in January of this year, announcing they were no longer doing business as a vendor in the Delphi arena. Although TurboPower made their decision for reasons that had nothing to do with Delphi (see Alan Moore's interview of TurboPower's President Gary Frerking ), the announcement sent shock waves through the Delphi community. And because TurboPower had 10 products in nine categories, our Readers Choice Awards were deeply affected as well.
In brief, you can expect to see some new products moving into the spotlight in TurboPower's absence. And there's certainly no shortage of products; this year's ballot featured 299, up from last year's 228.
In addition, we're always tweaking the categories to make them more accurately reflect the great diversity of products in the Delphi third-party marketplace. To that end, we've added three new ones: Security Tool, Team/Project Tool, and Web Host, so there are now 28.
So let's get to it!
Best Accounting Package
Broken tie. Last year, ColumbuSoft's Accounting for Delphi tied for first place with BS/1 (from Davis Business Systems Ltd.). This year however, Accounting for Delphi emerged as the clear winner with 33% of the vote, besting runner-up BS/1 with 23%. Bravo (from Bravosoft) takes third place for the third year in a row.
Best Add-in
Add-in redux. This category is a near carbon copy of last year's results, with the same products finishing first, second, and third. Developer Express' CodeRush (purchased recently from Eagle Software) took first place for the fifth straight year, with 36% of the votes. ModelMaker Code Explorer (from ModelMaker Tools) took runner-up with 19%, and Multi-Edit from American Cybernetics took third with 12%.
Best Book
Thunderdome. This year, Best Book turned into a battle between titans, the latest editions of the two most popular Delphi titles: Mastering Delphi 7 from the indefatigable Marco Cant? and Borland Delphi 6 Developer's Guide by Steve Teixeira and Xavier Pacheco. Cant?took first place with 44%, while Teixeira and Pacheco took runner-up with 39%.
Best Charting/Mapping Tool
Steemarolla. Not much new in this category. Although its percentage dropped 10 points, from 69% to 59%, Steema Software's teeChartPro still dominates Best Charting/Mapping Tool, and has done so since the category was introduced in 1998. That's six consecutive first-place finishes! ExpressOrgChart Suite (from Developer Express) placed second for the third year running, while Chart FX (Software FX) has emerged from the pack to place a solid third.
Best Communications Tool
New champ. This category has been owned by TurboPower's Async Professional for the last six years; last year it took 75% of the vote! With TurboPower gone, however, this category was completely up for grabs. The new winner is RemObjects SDK (RemObjects Software) with 39% of the vote. IP*Works! Delphi Edition (/n software) repeats as runner-up with 22%.
Best Database Connectivity
New connections. After placing first and second for three straight years, Jason Wharton's IB Objects and ASTA (ASTA Technology Group) must be satisfied with third and fourth. The two new winners in this category are Advantage TDataSet Descendant (Extended Systems) with 20%, and FIBPlus (Devrace) with 15%.
Best Database Engine
Horror vacui. For three years now, this category has featured close competition between DBISAM Database System (Elevate Software) and Advantage Database Server (Extended Systems). Advantage Database Server won by 3 percentage points in 2001, and the products actually tied for first place in last year's balloting. This year, however, DBISAM has taken first place in convincing fashion with 40% of the votes, with Advantage garnering 28%.
It's also interesting to note how these two products are taking a higher percentage of the total votes. Advantage and DBISAM combined for 53% of the vote in 2001, and 54% in 2002, but this year they teamed up to take 68%. This would appear to indicate that they have moved into the vacuum left by TurboPower's FlashFiler, last year's third-place finisher with 20%. Apollo took third place this year with 9% (down from 15% last year), with Software Science's TOPAZ for Delphi nipping at its heels in fourth place with 7%.
Best Database Tool
So close. After three wins in a row for Woll2Woll Software with their InfoPower product, this year they'll have to be content with runner-up. But it was extremely close, with winner IB Expert (HK-Software) taking 21% to InfoPower's 20%. This marks a significant gain for IB Expert, which finished in third place last year with 13%. It leapt over ExpressQuantumTreeList (Developer Express), which finished in third place again this year with 16% (last year it pulled in 18%).
Best Debugging Tool
Bugs out. Not only does this category have a new name (last year it was Best Testing/Debugging Tool), but with TurboPower's Sleuth QA absent, it has a new winner as well. After three second-place finishes, this year you selected Raize Software's CodeSite as Best Debugging Tool, giving it 33% of your votes. The runner-up is AutomatedQA's AQTime with 27%. That's a big advance for both products; last year CodeSite got 24%, and AQTime finished in fourth place with 10%.
Best Globalization Tool
New world order (kinda). The players haven't changed, but they did reshuffle a bit. MULTILIZER VCL Edition (MULTILIZER) wins for the third straight year with 31% of the vote. TsiLang Components Suite (SiComponents) has second place all to itself this year (with 26%) after sharing it last year with Localizer (Korzh.com), which slipped to third with 20% this year.
Best Help-authoring Package
No help necessary. It was a bit surprising last year to see Help & Manual (from EC Software) emerge from the pack to win this category with 29% of the vote, because HelpScribble and RoboHELP had finished one and two the three previous years. But there was no looking back this year; Help & Manual has gone on to dominate the category with 51%. Going the other direction, last year's close runner-up, HelpScribble (JGsoft), fell to third place with 12%, while last year's third-place finisher RoboHELP stepped up to second with 15%.
Best Imaging Tool
Photo finish. The voting in this category ended in a dead heat, so Best Imaging Tool honors will be shared this year among ImageLib Corporate Suite (from Skyline Tools), and LEADTOOLS Imaging Toolkit (LEAD Technologies). And this category is heating up! ImageEn from HiComponents finished a strong third with 22%.
Best Installation Package
Slugfest resolved. This category continues to be dominated by the two installation giants: InstallShield Software and Wise Solutions. InstallShield is clearly pulling ahead in your estimation, however. After beating Wise last year by 6 points, InstallShield has gone on to best Wise easily by 19 points.
Best Library
Into the breach. TurboPower's SysTools had taken first place in this category for the last three years. Last year, however, after losing ground in 2001, SysTools edged out runner-up, ExpressBars Suite (Developer Express) by just three percentage points. If that trend h
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