Even though Microsoft’s Windows platform is still the dominant platform for application developers, it is losing traction as far as North America is concerned, according to the results of an Evans Data survey released on Tuesday.
In a survey involving more than 400 developers and IT managers in the United States, it was found that the number of developers targeting Windows for their applications declined 12 percent from just a year ago.
Says John Andrews, CEO of Evans Data:
“We attribute [the decline] largely to the increase of developers beginning to target Linux… Both Novell and Red Hat are the two dominant ones right now.”
You can read more from this InfoWorld article.
It does appear that the on-the-ground situation is finally mirroring what many Linux advocates have long predicted pertaining to the rise in popularity of Linux. Still, it remains to be seen if Linux will ever be a dominant overall player, though it is obvious that it is definitely maturing nicely on the server end at least.
This is reflected in the growing instances of enterprise vendors releasing Linux-based versions of their software; for example, Intuit releases QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions for Linux.
The article by InfoWorld also mentions that the release of Vista will help hold the decline of Windows as a preferred platform for developers. However, given that Vista does not offer anything substantial over Windows XP where software development is concerned, I am not so sure about that.
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