Going Back: The Inaugural Hall of Fame
Through the years, the Jolts have evolved to reflect the changing landscape of the software industry. One of these changes was the introduction of the Hall of Fame to honor those products that the judges felt deserved special recognition. The first Hall of Fame Award was presented to NuMega’s BoundsChecker in 1996. BoundsChecker was honored for consistent and serious content improvement, release after release; it was, hands-down, the product that developers should be using.
Hall of Fame inductees are consistent winners, whose high-quality has been proven and maintained over time, and are ineligible to compete in future Jolt competitions.
As one of the founders of the Jolt Awards reasoned, "When we enshrine a product in the virtual 'Hall of Fame,' we've said what we need to say about that product—that not only have individual releases of the product been excellent, but that the company has established its commitment to the product over time. Giving another version of that product another award is pointless—of course it's high quality, of course it’s innovative. Whatever variations from that ideal we see should be treated not in the awards process, but in the monthly reviews." However, this rule gets a bit complicated when one considers that entire companies have been honored with Hall of Fame induction. Therefore, we’ve decided to no longer honor individual companies, because we want to continue to duly recognize their new products and innovations. And, if judges feel that there are no time-honored products in a calendar year, we will not bestow the Hall of Fame Award.
Ten outstanding companies and products have been inducted into the Jolt Hall of Fame since 1996.
2006 IBM developerWorks (IBM)
2005 Visual Studio Professional (Microsoft)
2004 Installshield (Macrovision)
2003 Dreamweaver (Macromedia)
2002 MSDN (Microsoft)
2001 Borland
2000 Visual SlickEdit (MicroEdge)
1999 O’Reilly and Associates
1998 Visio (Visio)
1997 Visual Basic (Microsoft)
1996 BoundsChecker (NuMega)
