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Sunday, November 14, 2010

InstallAware Questionable Announcement

I just received the following email from InstallAware:


----- Original Message ----

From: Erika Lehman <elehman@installaware.com>
To: chrpai@yahoo.com
Sent: Sun, November 14, 2010 3:11:46 PM
Subject: InstallAware 10 First Ship Special - The Only Hybrid Installer

Together with the release of InstallAware 10, we're celebrating Visual Studio Magazine's Reader's Choice Award for InstallAware in the "Installation, Setup, & Deployment Tools" category! Thank you very much for helping make us the number one installer.

...  rest of message snipped ...

Kind regards,
Erika Lehman
Marketing Communications Manager
InstallAware Marketing Corporation
1888 Kalakaua Avenue, Suite C312
Honolulu, HI 96815
808 447 5817
What I find interesting is that they are claiming that they won the "Reader's Choice Award" and that they are the number one installer.

Really? InstallShield is claiming the same thing in a recent press release:

Flexera Software's InstallShield Wins Visual Studio Readers Choice 2010 Award
For Sixth Year in a Row, Gold Standard Installation Development Solution Takes Top Honors in Installation, Setup and Deployment Tools Category
SCHAUMBURG, IL--(Marketwire - November 11, 2010) - Flexera Software, the leading provider of strategic solutions for Application Usage Management for application producers and their customers, today announced that the readers of Visual Studio Magazine have once again selected Flexera Software's InstallShield®, the leading installation authoring solution for the Microsoft® Windows® platform, as the winner of the Visual Studio Readers Choice 2010 Award in the Installation, Setup and Deployment Tools category. This is the sixth year in a row that InstallShield has won this prestigious award, reflecting Flexera Software's ability to sustain the highest levels of functionality, ease of use, and customer satisfaction with the software.

... rest of message snipped ...
So I decided to go to the source to try to understand how two companies could possibly be claiming to win the same award.  Since I don't feel like stepping in the brown stuff today and have someone claim that I am misrepresenting the facts,  I'll just show you what I found and let you draw your own conclusions.



Let's just say that somebody is either not telling the truth or needs to get better at applying the creative use of weasel words. Of course the cynic in me notes that pretty much all of the award categories have 2 "merit award" winners and is aware there are only a few players in this sector in the first place. ( I've also read that VS Mag doesn't include MSFT tools because they want to encourage third party tools development so that explains why WiX won't be on the list. )

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