Developers cooling on Windows desktop, study finds
Maybe Microsoft's stronghold grip on the desktop is slipping after all.
But instead of the Web stealing away Windows users, as people have predicted for years, it's Linux and handheld devices.
According to an Evans Data study published on Tuesday, software developers are choosing to write applications for Windows deskop PCs less than they used to.
In a survey, Evans Data found that almost 65 percent of software developers are targeting some version of Windows for their applications, as opposed to nearly 75 percent last year. The research group expects the number to drop another 2 percent in the coming year.
The culprit? Linux. Developers are choosing to write applications for Linux desktops in almost 12 percent of cases, which is a 34 percent increase from last year.
"It's clear that a shift away (from) Windows began about two yeas ago, and the data show that this migration is now accelerating. Linux has benefited, but we also see corresponding growth in niche operating systems for non-traditional client devices. The landscape is changing," said Evans Data CEO John Andrews in a statement.
The popular notion among tech industry followers is that a more capable Web browser, able to run sophisticated applications either online or offline, will make the desktop operating system less important, if not irrelevant.
Many companies--even Microsoft--are taking up the idea of building a "Web, or cloud, operating system" for which developers can write online.
Even with more online applications, though, the Evans Data study notes that Windows desktop application development remains steady.
Other findings from its survey are that JavaScript--a language supported in modern browsers--is the most popular scripting language by far, with more than three times the number of users as PHP, Ruby or Python.
Also, virtualization is becoming commonplace, with about 42 percent of developers expecting to use the technology in the next year.
Update: the survey is completed twice a year on a voluntary basis by 400 software developers and is not sponsored by any software vendors.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
The second point I would like to touch is this web 2.0 thing. Over and Over again web 2.0 has been described as web resource technologies, not platforms for web based OS's, or web based Applications which run inside the browser window. At the Mix 07 conference Ray Ozzie confirmed that this is not the intention of Web 2.0, rather Web 2.0 is a resource standard. The OS can not survive in the cloud.
I am sorry but I am tired of hearing about the demise of Microsoft and the glory of Web apps, as much as I am tired of hearing about the iPhone. It is my personal opinion that the number one reason developers are attracted to Web base, is because the languages are incredibly easy. For example let's look at HTML, you can not get simpler then that. This is where companies who develope developing standard languages should step in and make their languages somewhat easier.
keeps releasing versions of Windows that are not ready for
prime time, and then people sit on their hands saying, "it will be
better after a SP comes out."
Maybe people are actually catching on that this is not the best
experience that they can get and are moving towards more
stable and progressive platforms that they don't have to wait a
year after installing to get the functionality they had a year
before in the previous version.
Web 2.0 probably won't replace any Operating Systems in the
near future. I also don't think Microsoft will be displaced and be
losing in the OS market any time soon either, but I wouldn't be
surprised if they are losing ground. What you call Apple's "hype
train" I call excellent marketing. The iPhone wasn't hyped by
them. The media hyped it. I can admit that I am tired of hearing
about the iPhone (namely because I knew I wasn't going to be
able to get one) but you can't blame Apple for c|net's obsessive
coverage of the device.
backward compatibilities of an older OS. This is quite evident
because Vista can't work both 32 and 64 bit level through out.
Next Apple release will be seamless 32/64 bit API through out
(Linux already) yet MS couldn't even do that. In addition, since
Vista has DRM embedded in the core OS and not application
level (like Apple does) by default MS lost some customer base.
I've noticed a lot of my friends (who are staunch XP'ers have
decided to stick with XP on their present hardware and later on
will move on to linux).
MS doomed itself when it couldn't make a clean start on its OS. It
won't happen fast, but the slide has started (with the latest news
that they have lost 10% of their developers over to linux).
Sure Vista will improve (Apple took two major revisions to get
their OS X straight), but overall the underlying architectural
design of Vista is bloated (like their Office apps). If you do a
memory footprint between (similar capable) Apple OS X and
Vista, Vista loses.
was nothing like an obituary, certainly nowhere close to the
"Apple is dead" refrain of bygone days.
Microsoft is so big it is not going to implode but it is now the
entrenched and highly dominant industry giant. Therefore, it
suffers all of the problems that previous computer industry
giants have suffered from.
MS can afford to waste (in hindsight) vast amounts of money on
failed ideas ("Bob", anyone?) and very slow-takeoff products like
XBox, because of their lucrative Windows/Office product line. If
they try enough new products, some will be rather successful.
MS core problem is that, at their stock valuation, they need
another product success on the scale of Windows or Office.
Unfortunately, copying the iPod or Playstation is not ever going
to give them that great new product.
By the way, I am not aware that Ray Ozzie is the official architect
and definer of all things Web 2.0, so his pronouncements as to
what it is are hardly the definitive word on what Web 2.0 is.
They can only be construed as what MS wants Web 2.0 to be and
that is no longer sufficient to make it reality.
Besides easy is a relative thing. It depends on the persons background and the project. Some things are easy in C, some are painful.
"Easy" languages can also suffer from a lack of adaptability and extensibility.
Also, making a language easy can bite you. Look at PHP. It is simple and attracts many amateurs, plus PHP isn't very secure by default. So the web has been flooded with poorly written server side code. No matter how easy a language is, the writer must still possess a certain amount of technical knowledge to be able to effectively leverage it. As far as the amateur is concerned, as long as it "works" then it is written properly, and that can be very dangerous.
Microsoft obituary. Microsoft is no where near death"
yeah, MS isn't dead that is just the stench of their bloated
practices and software rotting in the sun....
yeah this whole linux and mac thing is just a phase, like that silly
little music player, the pod or something they called it.
and writing apps for the web? phah! to easy! we used to write
in assembly!
yeah back in my day things were different, and you young ones
don't know anything about how it was way back.....
oh go stuff yourself. just like MS brought an end to IBM
dominance and netware, well now Apple and linux are eating up
MS. pull your head out of the 90s and look around at the bright
new world.
2) "The OS" can and will "survive in the cloud" - otherwise, how the heck d'ya expect to get to "the web"? Computers do not simply start themselves, and Web Servers don't run on thin air. There is a sliver of truth in that the OS fast becomes a commodity on the server side, a tool that merely supports the web server - but guess which OS/web server combo has majority share? (hint: It ain't Microsoft/IIS). Windows/IIS is barely holding what market share it has in the server space, and most of that exists because of Exchange.
3) Linux is not "a phase" - if you actually worked in and around IT (not the help desk - real IT) you would have known and seen this.
4) Yep it would be nice to have a standard language - fortunately, there are many to choose from... problem is, MSFT products are not anywhere near compliant with most of them - including HTML.
HTH a little,
/P
Also, yes Linux is getting a large number of applications but if they are 12 variations of a music player should that really be a factor?
I'm more interested in if commercial applications are increasing the offerings to Linux exclusively or in addition to other OSs (Windows, Mac, Solaris, FreeBSD, etc.)
their architectural design flaws.
Lets face it Quicken is the standard for home finances. Its hard to compete against it on Windows. But on Apple and Linux the market is wide open. The same thing can be said for applications like Visio. No one wants to develop another Visio because who's going to use it on Windows. But that market is wide open on Apple in Linux.
Commercial products built on the Windows platform are charging an arm and a leg, but commercial products built for Apple and Linux are much cheaper, have just as good, if not better features than their Windows counter parts.
Yes HTML is an easy language to learn but you don't develop applications with just HTML there are many other applications and languages involved in providing a web based application. This can get very involved especially if you are trying to make it scale. Companies are moving their development to the web because the cost to deploy it is less expensive. If you worked in the days where desktop applications ruled the roost you would understand. In most business environments today if you don't have a Web based version of your product you are not going to get the product in the door.
I would have to disagree with Linux being a fad or phase. Its been around for what 12 - 15 years now? Unix is going on 38 years. I think that Windows has seen its better days and the world is moving on.
Developers are realizing that there is little need today to write to specific operating systems. There are plenty of high quality cross platform languages and libraries. Even C is extremely portable, as long as you use cross platform libraries for normally OS specific functions. And the performance cost is too small to matter, and stability isn't an issue either.
The article was good until the author decided to compare Javascript with Python. What an ignorant statement that is. There is no comparison between the two. Java script is more or less just a client side scripting language, python is a full features, and quite well designed programming language. PHP is a scripting language, but almost exclusively a server side language, unlike Javascript. Ruby also can not be compared to Java script. Ruby and Python can be compared though, PHP and Ruby is a stretch, since Ruby on Rails is miles ahead of PHP running in a lamp stack.
I almost expected you to write that Java and Javascript are related. LOL
If I had to pick my favorite Linux desktop app, it would have to be Amarok. It is by far the best music player, too bad it is Linux only.
I work for a large IT company for 40K+ employees. They have said outright they will not be upgrading to Vista. There are to many mission critical applications that just do not work with Vista. We have even block IE7 do to the fact mission critical applications behave erratically.
We work closely with the Federal Government. I have yet to see them make a move towards Vista. It was just two - three years ago that they made the move to XP. I think that its the other way around I think that Windows was the fad. I remember a time when TRS-80 systems and C-64 were the home users computer of choice, and in the workplace it was VAX terminals and PDP-11s.
Windows has had a good run, but it really is time to move on. Vista doesn't mark the beginning of the end for Microsoft. I think that happened with all the IE exploits a few years back. Vista is just a reaffirmation that Microsoft has gotten to be too big of a company to effectively deal with its problems and produce quality products.
The good thing is we all have choices with the platforms we want to apply.
Linux may be getting stronger and better, but ill stick with M$ for desktop apps till i see Dell start selling 1/3 Linux to xp/vista boxes.
if anything beats the M$ platform down to size it will be browser apps. not so much as an OS but as an alternative to what would normally need purchased and now is really cheap, or really free through a web app.
also, the easiest way to make an app cross platform is to build it in the browser. talking about dbase, etc. apps. which is what i work on.
has DX10 been ported to Linux yet, if not, no next gen graphics for you penguins.
.NET framework is kind of the ****
Running x64 XP just fine, not sure what you mean by they didn?t get the x86 and x64 arch?s right, seems to work perfectly for me and is really easy to compile a 32bit app as a 64 in the .net environment.
maybe i should read up, or no ill just right some more apps to express my viability into making my company better and my job secure.
Secondly DirectX10 is a dead API. Game companies don't need it or want it.
Windows 64 bit is a total joke. Nice try.
and never touch an MS product.
I think it'll be a long time before Dell sells 1/3rd Linux. They are
more or less contractually bound not to on desktop machines.
They already sell >50% Linux on their servers, but they have
obligations that, while not forbidding selling Linux for the
desktop, provide substantial penalties if they do so in
substantial volume. Dell simply can't afford to do it.
The DX10 comment is a little silly. Linux already has the features
of DX10 (with better hardware support on curretn cards), but
with an utterly different API -- and one that is supported right
now. While there's DX9 for Linux, I doubt that DX10 will be
meaningful save for games built on some obscure engine. "next-
gen graphics" has nothign to do with DX10 -- the graphical
features of which are already supported in the current OpenGL
spec (also shared with Apple).
I think the other poster is talking about 64-bit and 32-bit ABI
mixing, which neither XP nor Vista supports. Also, unlike Linux
and Mac OS X, a set of 64-bit drivers are required for the 64-bit
versions of Windows. 64-bit Windows is treated, even by MS, as
a secondary platform at this point. .Net mostly works, but less
than half of MS' own apps work under the 64-bit versions of
Windows, and much less still commercial apps.
Incidentally, in .Net, originally there was to be no distinction
between 32-bit and 64-bit implementations and you wouldn't
have different compile targets. While this is how it works on
non-MS platforms, Windows still distinguishes (namely because
of legacy API support).
The company I work for doesn't generally purchase platform-
locked applications anymore. We're biotech, so most of the R&D
software is UNIX (Solaris/Linux/Mac OS X) or Java-based anyway,
but there's still some vendors that offer an MS-only product and
if it comes between them and a vendor with a platform-neutral
product, we generally go with the latter. While it's been true in
R&D for several years, this is becoming more true in our IT
department too. They still put Windows (and to a lesser extent
Mac OS X) on everyone's desk, but they're adopting Linux
servers in a big way and now almost all the technical
workstations and most instrumentation consoles are now Linux.
Instrumentation and control vendors are also moving to Linux.
At least in the Bio-Pharma industry, you see Windows basically
becoming the MS Office platform. Almost any other application
is web-based, platform-neutral, or runs on some UNIX variant
(with a platform-neutral client or web front-end). I used to
develop scientific software for Windows -- but frankly nobody
buys for that platform anymore. Were it finance, or video games,
I might have a market. Outside that, though, it's definitely no
longer a dominating force.
/P
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1260325,00.html
For the first time in more than a decade I've considered upgrading to a non-Windows machine, mainly because my needs have changed and I'm not so "software dependent" anymore on Windows. The one thing that still ties me to Windows is MS Word, which I use occasionally. I could get that on the Mac, but my current version of it is for Windows. I'd rather not pay for a new version to get the same thing I have already. I know you can produce Word doc's in OpenOffice, but last I heard its Word file formatting still has its quirks. If they could get 100% format compatibility I'd take a look at it.
Too bad that in their rush to match Apple's OSX they created Windows XP, which for the first two years was almost as bad as Vista is pre-Service Pack.
OpenOffice works great. Try it out yourself if the file formatting is problematic. Since its a free download, it won't cost you anything to try it out.
I haven't had any problems with file formats in OpenOffice.org, and even if you do, here are two reasons to keep it on your computer:
1) It opens corrupted Word files from any version, allowing you to recover most defective Word files
2) It creates .pdf documents for FREE.
- Shifting away from Windows
- by Jim Harmon July 4, 2007 1:33 PM PDT
- After stopping at the store recently, I noticed a significant programming shift away from Windows - and onto PS3, Wii and XBox!
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(51 Comments)I'd love to see the stats concerning program percentages if game software was included in the calculations.