For the second time in two months the rumormill brings me word of some rather naughty vendors spreading lies. I won't name names, you know who you are, so knock it off.
Look, if you decided not to participate in a review, that's fine. It's your loss and a bad idea, but hey - it's your company, not mine. But when your customers or potential customers ask you why you didn't participate, you don't lie and tell them "it cost too much to get into the review" or dismiss the results of 3 months of our lives by saying "so and so must have paid to get that result".
Network Computing has never been paid for conducting its reviews. We conduct reviews for our readers and we don't take payment for placement. If you want that kind of coverage, you know what magazines and analyst firms you need to go to. It ain't us.
If a product won a review, it's because in our scenario it scored the best out of all products tested. And we test them hard. We beat them, kick them and make them do things you didn't think we'd try. I'm a developer by trade so I can probably make your application do things you hadn't even considered yet - and that means I'm likely to break it along the way, just like your customers - our readers - might do.
If you think someone could pay us to say good things about a bad product, then you're confusing us with test labs and analyst firms that shall remain nameless. Take a look at some of our reviews. We aren't all sunshine and happiness, especially when a product performs poorly. We tell the truth about our experiences, plain and simple.
So please stop. We don't spend months of our lives in the lab testing products to have it casually dimissed by vendors who were afraid to let us play with your toys.
You made your koolaid, now drink it.
