Network World, 1/4/99

Our annual reader poll of the most powerful people and companies shows some surprising winners and losers.

It seemed for a while there that Microsoft was funding the Powerometer survey, our annual reader poll of the most powerful people and companies in networking. Last year, Microsoft and Bill Gates topped the charts on every power-related category.

But this year, our survey of 250 Network World readers brings some sobering news for Bill and company. Sure, Microsoft and Chairman Gates retain their top billing as the most powerful company and CEO in the network industry. But when we asked readers who gained the most power in 1998, they rated Cisco and Lucent over Microsoft. When it comes to picking up power in '99, Microsoft actually drops to fifth place, behind Lucent, Intel, Cisco and 3Com. Gates drops to eighth place in expectations of power for '99, with Cisco CEO John Chambers taking top honors for power gains in the year ahead.

Microsoft isn't the only company that took a hit in reader rankings this year. Netscape was battered and Scott McNealy and his minions at Sun also dipped, among others.

John Chambers and Cisco were among the winners on this power scorecard, as were Lucent and MCI WorldCom and - surprisingly - Sprint's CEO Bill Esrey. Comeback of the year has to go to Eric Schmidt and Novell, who pulled themselves up from negative territory last to make pretty good showings.

So take a gander at how the most important people in the industry - the customers - rank the high and mighty of networking. As you scout through the charts, look for the highlights in the Winners and Losers boxes.

The quick gauges

Get a quick visual read on who's up and down at the top of the charts. Requires Javascript.

Power Rating - The top-10 most powerful companies and execs in 1998.

Power Gain Index - See which ones are going up, and which are coming down.

All the details

These charts have complete survey stats for the top 25 people and companies - you can really get into the results with these.

Power Rating - We asked readers to rate companies and execs on a 1-100 scale. The Power Rating shows the mean of their results.

Power Gain Index - See who's climbing up - and who's sliding down.

Power Predictor - And see who'll be going up in the year to come.

A note on the charts: The Powerometer survey was conducted by First Market Research of Austin, Texas, during the weeks of October 26 and November 2. First Market conducted 250 telephone interviews with readers chosen at random from Network World's circulation. For more information on First Market Research, go to www.firstmarket.com.