San Diego, California, September 10, 2001: SmartDraw, the popular business drawing program published by SmartDraw.com, has been awarded the "People's Choice Award" for 2001 by the Shareware Industry Awards Foundation.

Between May 1 and May 31, 2001, the public voted for their favorite programs in fourteen different categories. SmartDraw emerged as the overall winner, collecting the largest total number of votes on the industry-leading CNET sites where votes were cast.

"This is the greatest honor we could hope for," said Paul Stannard, CEO of SmartDraw.com and creator of the SmartDraw program. "In the past, we have won awards in particular categories, such as Best Business Program or Best Graphics Program. But this is the big one. We feel like we just won the Academy Award for Best Picture."

"It's extremely gratifying," said Philip Steele, Vice President of Content and Marketing for SmartDraw.com. "What this seems to tell us is that when people think 'great software' they think 'SmartDraw.' We couldn't ask for anything more."

SmartDraw.com is no stranger to industry awards. Previously this year, SmartDraw won Smart Computing magazine’s smart Choice?Award for the best drawing and flowcharting program in their roundup. SmartDraw has received PC magazine's "Best Business Program" Award in the Ziff-Davis shareware competition¡Xtwice! SmartDraw has also won "Best Business Program" and "Best Graphics Program" awards from the Shareware Industry Awards Association, among many other awards and honors.

About the SmartDraw Program
SmartDraw offers thousands of ready-made symbols and drawing templates to help users with no drawing skill Draw Anything Easily?/SUP>. SmartDraw is preferred by project planners, students, network administrators, and other busy professionals who need to create quality presentations quickly and easily, without having to learn a complex program. PC magazine described SmartDraw as "an exceptionally well-furnished and transparently simple diagramming program." Anyone can download a free 30-day trial version of SmartDraw from the SmartDraw site at http://www.smartdraw.com/.

About SmartDraw.com
Since 1994, SmartDraw.com has been developing drawing software for the PC and distributing it over the Internet from its headquarters in San Diego, California. Sales have grown steadily at approximately 75% per year from its inception. Each month SmartDraw.com receives more than 500,000 visits to its Web site and distributes more than 100,000 copies of its free trial software. More than 120,000 subscribers to the SmartDraw Users Group enjoy newsletters featuring helpful hints, free downloads and special product offerings. According to Alexa Research, the authority for global web traffic rankings, SmartDraw.com is in the top 0.1% of the most visited sites on the Internet.