> Here is the methodology we used:
> 
> 1. We emailed over 75,000 IT professionals, and also had the
>    survey posted on our website.  We obtained email address from
>    tradeshow lists, direct marketing lists, registered customers
>    and our entire customer prospect list.  We did not as some
>    have suggested ask just the XQuery SIG :).
> 
> 2. 550 completed surveys were submitted.
> 
> 3. Of the 550 people who submitted complete surveys, 477
>    indicated that they currently use or plan to use XQuery this
>    year.
> 
> 4. This is a huge sample size...  to put things in perspective,
>    last year, media news outlets were trying to determine the
>    outcome of the US presidential election using smaller sample
>    sizes.


So of the contacted 75000 people only 550 responded.

This is less than 1% response -- this seems a very bad result to me...

And not at all representative.

If people were really interested, would only less than 1% respond?

Can any conclusions  (except that the survey was far from successful)
be really drawn?

Finally, is there any value at all in such a survey?


Cheers,
Dimitre