Basil Alwan is really popular, it turns out. Or, maybe he's just got friends who vote a lot.

Either way, he's gotten a sparkling reception after appearing in the recent Light Reading Top 10 Movers & Shakers. In the subsequent LR poll, 72 precent of the 212 who voted (as of press time) say Alwan, president of the Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) IP division, is their favorite Mover and/or Shaker.

That's a landslide! A mandate. Second place went to Jagdeep Singh, founding CEO of Infinera Corp. (Nasdaq: INFN), with 10 percent of the vote.

When the poll asked which mover/shaker was the least favorite, the results were a little more spread out. Charles Giancarlo, chief development officer for Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), "won" with 29 percent of the vote. Matt Bross, chief technology officer at BT, came in second with 22 percent. And Alwan, apparently suffering some backlash, came in third at 12 percent.

We got curious upon seeing the haters come out for Giancarlo. After all, his company directly competes in Alwan's part of Alcatel-Lucent, namely, routers. Could someone be trying to stack the vote...?

So, tell us:

{survey 321}{column 2}The original poll has been closed, but feel free to use this article's message board to elaborate on other Mover and Shaker conspiracy theories.

— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading