By December 21, more than two-thirds of the respondents (69.5 percent), said they planned to deliver some applications through Web services by the end of 2002, with a large majority of those (nearly half the total sample) planning to use Java. Only 21.5 percent said they planned to use Microsoft .Net--even less than the figure (23.5 percent) planning to use neither.
But by the time the poll closed, on January 5, the results had dramatically changed, with three quarters of voters claiming to be implementing .Net. This apparent sudden change of heart over the Christmas period appears to be the result of a concerted campaign. ZDNet UK logs reveal rather obvious vote rigging.
--A very high percentage of voters are from within the microsoft.com domain.
--Many people attempted to cast multiple votes, even though the poll script tried to blocked this out. The most determined voter made 228 attempts. This person was from within the microsoft.com domain.
--Several of the voters evidently followed a link contained in an e-mail, the subject line of which ran: "PLEASE STOP AND VOTE FOR .NET!" ZDNet logs include the Web address from where the e-mails were sent and showed that the people who followed that link all had e-mail addresses in the microsoft.com domain.
--There is also clear evidence of automated voting, with scripts attempting to post multiple times.
Last August, lobbyists acting for Microsoft dispatched letters to U.S. states' attorneys general from two deceased people as part of a campaign to persuade government prosecutors to lay off the company in the antitrust case. U.S, lobby group the Campaign Against Government Waste (CAGW) posted the letters as part of an attempt to convince attorneys general there was a grass-roots campaign against the case.
Although votes cast after December 21 are suspect, this episode illustrates the importance of Web services--at least to suppliers, anyway. The inevitable conclusion is that these are some of the first salvos in what will be a bitter PR struggle.
