This year it looks certain that a new participation record will be set, as more than 4,000 votes have already been recorded in just the first seven days of voting, and more than 50,000 SYS-CON Media readers are estimated to cast their votes in this year's Readers' Choice Awards. The winners of this years awards will be announced in November at Web Services Edge 2005 West - International Web Services Conference & Expo in San Francisco.

The list of companies heading the various polls reads like a "Who's Who" of the most active and enterprising players in the i-technology space - including all the industry's top software and hardware vendors, services providers, and technical publishers. Highlights after just one week's voting include:

2005 JDJ Readers' Choice Awards:

There are 26 categories in this year's JDJ awards. In the coveted "Best Java Application Server" category, the four front-runners that have emerged in the first week's voting are BEA WebLogic Server 8.1 (BEA Systems), IBM WebSphere Application Server (IBM), JBoss Application Server (JBoss Inc.), and Oracle Application Server 10g (Oracle).

In the "Best Java IDE" category, competition is equally intense, with the first week's voting putting Eclipse (Eclipse Foundation) in the lead at the moment, with IBM WebSphere Studio (IBM), IntelliJ IDEA (JetBrains), and Oracle JDeveloper (Oracle) all in the top four at present, too.

The "Best Wireless Application" race is currently being led by IBM WebSphere MQ Everyplace (IBM), ahead of RIM Blackberry Wireless Handheld (Research in Motion), while the "Most Innovative Java Product" category is at present being led by Eclipse (Eclipse Foundation), and the "Best Java Component" category by  Oracle ADF Business Components (Oracle).

2005 LinuxWorld Magazine Readers' Choice Awards:

While it is of course very early days yet, in the 14 categories of the LinuxWorld Magazine awards this year there are also a number of very close races after the first week's voting.

The front runners in the "Best Linux Database" category are currently Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise - ASE (Sybase), followed by Ingres (Computer Associates), MySQL (MySQL AB) and Oracle Database 10g (Oracle), while the "Best Linux Programming Environment" category sees NetBeans/Java Studio Enterprise (Sun) currently in the lead ahead of Borland Enterprise Studio for C++ (Borland) and IBM WebSphere Studio Workbench (IBM).

The "Best Linux Server" category is at present being led by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (Red Hat), ahead of Novell SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 8 (Novell), IBM eServer (IBM) and ProLiant DL380 G4 (HP).

2005 Web Services Journal/XML-Journal Readers' Choice Awards:

With 23 different voting categories, the Web Services Journal/XML-Journal awards promise again to be a broad reflection of all that's good in the Web services space, with an incredibly close race going on after the first week's voting in for example the prestigious "Best Web Services IDE" category - where 8 different leading contenders are all neck and neck at the moment: IBM WebSphere Studio Application Developer (IBM), Visual Basic.NET (Microsoft), BEA WebLogic Workshop (BEA), Altova xmlspy 2004 (Altova), NetBeans/Java Studio Enterprise (Sun), Borland JBuilder (Borland), Oracle JDeveloper 10g (Oracle), and Stylus Studio XML IDE (Stylus Studio).

Other closely contested categories include: "Best Web Services Management Tool/Platform," in which the current leader is webMethods Enterprise Services Platform (webMethods) and "Best Web Services Testing Tool," where the current top three are Soaptest (Parasoft), SOAPscope 4.0 (Mindreef ), and IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Transaction Performance with Rational Robot (IBM).

Other products currently at the top of their respective categories after the first week of voting are: Unwired Orchestrator (Sybase) in the "Best Web Services BPM Engine" category; JAXP 1.3 (Sun) in the "Best XML Parser" category; Eclipse (Eclipse Foundation) in the "Best GUI for Web Services" category, and Exegenix Conversion Satellite (Exegenix) in the "Best XML Utility" category.

The ever-popular "Most Innovative Application of XML" category has at present a top four that reflects where some of the newest energy is right now in Web services: eBay Developers Program (eBay) currently leads, followed by Altova xmlspy (Altova), sforce (Salesforce.com) and Macromedia Flex (Macromedia). As ever, on this and every other category, the running order is certain to change from day to day and week to week until the final results crystallize as voting ends.
 
2005 .NET Developer's Journal  Readers' Choice Awards:

Among the 13 categories of this year's .NET Developer's Journal awards, none is traditionally more closely fought than the "Best .NET Application Management" category. Currently, after the first week of voting, the three front-runners have emerged as: BusinessObjects 6.5 (Business Objects), AppSight Application Support System (Identify Software), and PocketAdmin for Windows (Expand Beyond).

In the equally closely contested "Best .NET Testing, Q/A, and Debugging" category, the field is wide open at present, the top four currently being: ANTS Profiler (Red Gate Software), .TEST (Parasoft), Compuware DevPartner Studio Professional Edition (Compuware), TestComplete (AutomatedQA) and AppSight Application Support System (Identify Software).

The popular "Best .NET Web Site" category has three well-known leaders after the first week: Microsoft Developer Network MSDN (Microsoft), The Code Project (The Code Project), and www.asp.net (Microsoft). And the "Best .NET Libraries and Controls" category currently has two main front-runners, DataWindow .NET (Sybase) and NetAdvantage (Infragistics).

2005 ColdFusion Developer's Journal / MX Developer's Journal  Readers' Choice Awards:

The twelve different categories in the CFDJ/MXDJ awards this year are full of close races after the first week of voting.

In the "Best Web Application" category for example MX Shop (InterAKT Online), Vertabase Pro (Standpipe Studios), and FarCry CMS (Daemon) head up the running at present, while the "Best Custom Tag Or Component" category currently has two main front-runners, MX Widgets and KTML (both InterAKT Online).

The leaders in the "Best Web Hosting" category are at the moment HostMySite.com, CFDynamics, and EV1 Servers, while the "Best Web Site or Community" category has four sites currently in front: Macromedia DevCenter (Macromedia), EasyCFM.com (EasyCFM), www.communitymx.com, and Fullasagoog.com (Geoff Bowers).

"Best Consulting Service" has three strong leaders after week one of voting: Fig Leaf Software, Teratech Consulting, and Codesweeper.