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Rant of the Day: Marketers bending the facts

I’ve just read a press release by Telerik claiming that their tools are the “preferred” choice among asp.netPRO readers. The rest of the blurb is about winning awards. True, they won awards. But it is the claim that “Telerik products are their [asp.netPRO readers] preferred choice when it comes to web development” that irritates me.

In fact, it all comes down to the word “preferred”, because when you see the actual awards you’ll see that Telerik didn’t actually come first (a prerequisite to being “preferred” I’d have thought) in many of those awards. And going by the way one of my colleagues rants about his use of Telerik products and the performance issues incurred in a previous job, I have to wonder about some things.

Marketing people will milk any public compliment for everything they can, and that is fine. But I don’t like it when they push the bounds.

So, lets look at the evidence. Here are the results of the asp.netPRO 2009 Readers’ Choice Awards.

Incidentally, none of the categories are called “Best…” anything that I could see. That is more spinning of the facts in my book.

  • Charting and Graphics Tool: Winner (and therefore the actual “preferred” choice) is Developer Express XtraCharts Suite. Telerik were a runner up.
  • Component Set: Winner (and therefore the actual “preferred” choice) is Developer Express DXexperience ASP.NET. Telerik were a runner up.
  • Content Management System: Winner (and therefore the actual “preferred” choice) is Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Web Content Management. Telerik were an honourable mention.
  • Grid: Winner (and therefore the actual “preferred” choice) is Developer Express ASPxGridView. Telerik were a runner up.
  • Navigation Control: Winner (and therefore the actual “preferred” choice) is Developer Express ASPxNavBar. Telerik were runner up.
  • Online Editor: Winner (and therefore the actual “preferred” choice) is Developer Express ASPxHTML Editor. Telerik were runner up.
  • Printing/Reporting tool: Winner (and therefore the actual “preferred” choice) is Developer Express XtraReports Suite. Telerik were runner up.
  • Scheduling/Calendar Tool: Winner (and therefore the actual “preferred” choice) is Developer Express ASPxScheduler. Telerik were runner up.
  • Testing/QA Tool: Finally, Telerik are a winner! But what is this “Powered by ArtOfTest” all about? Call me cynical, but it seems it wasn’t all Telerik’s own work.
  • Training: Winner (and therefore the actual “preferred” choice) is ASPSmith.com’s ASP.NET Training. Telerik were once again a runner up.
  • Utility: Winner (and therefore the actual “preferred” choice) is Developer Express ASPxSpellChecker. Telerik were a runner up.
  • Silverlight: Winner (and therefore the actual “preferred” choice) is Developer Express AgDataGrid Suite. Telerik were runner up.

So, to summarise. Yes, Telerik did very well, but they were the “preferred” choice in just one category by my reckoning.

Print | posted on Thursday, May 21, 2009 8:29 AM

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# re: Rant of the Day: Marketers bending the facts

One funny thing to note is how many people question how legitimate these awards really are. For example, the AgDataGrid for Silverlight is still in beta, and an early beta at that. It doesn't have half the features of the Telerik (or ComponentArt, or ComponentOne) grid, yet it won an award.

I stick by the "preferred" control rather than the one which had no business being nominated in the first place. Can't speak for the other categories, but this alone makes the results seem a little fishy. As for my team, we use both the ComponentArt and Telerik suites, and while we did evaluate the DX grid, it is nowhere near production ready and they are sadly very behind in the Silverlight game. If that makes it worth an award, what do these awards really mean?
5/21/2009 1:58 PM | Eric Roberts

# re: Rant of the Day: Marketers bending the facts

Black hat marketing?
5/21/2009 6:51 PM | Phil W.
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# re: Rant of the Day: Marketers bending the facts

How legitimate is any democratic process? In the 2000 Presidential Election in the US Al Gore got half a million votes more than George Bush, yet Bush won. In the 2005 General Election Tony Blair got in with just 35.3% of the vote. You can argue all you like about how legitimate each of these were, but the fact is Bush became President and Blair was returned as Prime Minister.

I cannot answer for why people voted for a beta product. Perhaps they genuinely thought it was better that the rest. More features does not necessarily mean better.

Many years ago I had to use a charting component for a project I was working on. I thought Dundas' product was the best. It was robust, easy to use, object oriented. However, it didn't have all the features that a rival had. The rival product did really weird things like break and not throw exceptions. We could write a chart out as a graphics file to disk, but we had to write additional code to detect the file afterwards because the component we ended up using would swallow errors and exceptions. Still, it had more features! Doesn't matter what the quality is just so long as you've managed to cram more features in there, right?

Anyway, this has gone off the topic of the original blog post which was the bending of the facts by marketers. The fact is Telerik was not the outright winner in all but one category, yet their claims (if you don't look too deeply into them) make it sound like everyone is gushing about their stuff.

Ultimately, if you want to find out which one is the best for you then download trial editions, test it for the scenarios you want to use it and decide for yourself!
5/21/2009 10:29 PM | Colin Angus Mackay
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# re: Rant of the Day: Marketers bending the facts

Colin, quick correction on the same point as last time: the component that was preferred to the Dundas component wasn't preferred because it had more features; it was preferred because it met all of the requirements of the project, while Dundas only met some of them. So Dundas couldn't have been chosen, as it didn't meet the project requirements. Remember?

Ron
5/25/2009 10:41 AM |
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# re: Rant of the Day: Marketers bending the facts

Yes, Ron, I remember. And again, as last time, this is my personal opinion about which charting component was better quality. True, Dundas could not produce all charting types we needed. But in terms of, and to paraphrase my comment above, robustness and ease of use it was, in my opinion, a much better product.

Nowhere did I say it was "preferred" and nowhere did I say it met the project requirements. "I thought" == my opinion. Which is what the awards were about, people's opinions.

When a component will quite happily swallow errors and not tell you when it fails, that raises some big red warning flags for me. Since it was the only component that did everything we had no choice and we had to work around those *quirks*. It doesn't mean I have to like it, prefer it or think that it is the best.
5/25/2009 1:10 PM | Colin Angus Mackay
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# re: Rant of the Day: Marketers bending the facts

I see from my analytics that this page is getting quite a few hits from searches like "Developer Express Versus Telerik" or "Dev Express vs. Telerik" and variants thereof. I know which one seems to be winning in the honesty stakes!
6/1/2009 11:16 AM | Colin Angus Mackay

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