LOGIN | REGISTER NOW | SUBSCRIBE
 
 
News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>


   

 
 
Download Current Issue
ISSUE 3/15/2010 PDF

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Receive the print Edition?


 
blogs tab
ASP.NET MVC 2 Ships
ASP.NET MVC 2 has shipped.
03/12/2010 10:26 AM EST

Microsoft plans 'open' Silverlight analytics framework
Microsoft is going to announce a multipurpose analytics framework for Silverlight at MIX.
03/11/2010 09:51 AM EST

About CSS processing
Two sites that lead to a startling CSS conclusion.
03/10/2010 02:29 AM EST

 

Events calendar tab
SHARE
3/14/2010 to 3/18/2010
Seattle, Wa.
SHARE

Cloud Connect
3/15/2010 to 3/18/2010
Santa Clara, Calif.
TechWeb

Microsoft MIX10
3/15/2010 to 3/17/2010
Las Vegas
Microsoft

SharePointPro Summit & Expo
3/16/2010 to 3/19/2010
Las Vegas
Penton Media

TheServerSide Java Symposium
3/17/2010 to 3/19/2010
Las Vegas
TechTarget


 
print Printable version 
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Even with its success, .NET causes some consternation
Despite its popularity, the developer community believes that .NET isn't being fully serve...

Guest View: The half-agile path leads nowhere
While businesses are taking on agile and adopting its practices, an incomplete implementat...

Gomez delivers cross-browser performance monitoring
Focusing on the wide variety of browsers for both PCs and mobile devices, Gomez provides a...

Digg!  Digg
Reddit  Reddit
Slashdot  Slashdot
Share on facebook  Facebook
Share on Twitter  Twitter

Survey: Developers Targeting Windows Less Often


By David Worthington
August 1, 2007 — 
Could a trickle of developers in Canada, Mexico and the United States shifting away from Windows signal a coming torrent? Surveys published by Evans Data over the past two years have concluded that there is an accelerating trend of developers abandoning Windows clients as target platforms, and Evans forecasts that the trend will continue in favor of developing for embedded platforms and Linux.

The latest numbers, published by Evans in its biannual North American Development Survey on July 3, indicate that development specifically for the Windows operating system has declined by 12 percent from one year ago, continuing a two-year slide.

Whether the same trend is occurring worldwide is unknown. Evans has not yet released its latest updates for the Asia-Pacific and Europe-Middle East-Africa regions.

In 2006, 74 percent of survey participants said that they were writing applications for some version of Windows. This year, that number fell to 64.8 percent from an equal sample, and Evans expects another 2 percent drop in the coming year.

There is one bright side for Microsoft: Evans found that Windows use by developers themselves has remained steady.

Changing Landscape
The survey found that the number of developers writing specifically for Linux had increased 34 percent, from 8.8 percent of respondents a year ago to 11.8 percent today. The data also shows that there was corresponding growth in development for embedded operating systems. “The landscape is changing,” said John Andrews, president and CEO of Evans in a prepared statement.

Evans did not divulge its methodology and other supportive information except to say that the responses came from a pool of over 400 developers, from a variety of industries spread across development types.

Microsoft declined to comment on the Evans survey. It is a client of Evans’ and a member of its advisory board.

Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, an independent organization of experts that tracks Microsoft, speculated, “It could well be that people are choosing Linux or another [platform] because they already have a strong Windows offering.

“The key question you would have to see would [be]: ‘Why are you choosing this platform?’ to make the data interesting,” continued Cherry.

Other findings from the survey show that JavaScript is the most widely used scripting language, eclipsing PHP, Python and Ruby. However, Ruby usage is expected to increase by half over a year’s time.

Additionally, a third of North American developers are working with virtualization, and its adoption is expected to increase by 42.5 percent within a year.


Share this link: http://www.sdtimes.com/link/30986
 

Add comment


Name*
Email*  
Country     


  • Comment
  • Preview
Loading