14 DAY TRIAL // Despite the fact that Microsoft has been losing consistent ground to competing products with its Windows platform for mobile phones, the Redmond company's operating system is still preferred over rival OSes when it comes down to corporate applications. According to statistics from Evans Data's Wireless Development Survey, the number of developers that plan to build enterprise apps for Windows Mobile surpasses those that are focusing on Apple iPhone by 40%. At the same time, the .Net compact framework is favored by 46% more developers than Google's Android platform.
Microsoft is currently, very slowly, making its way towards Windows Mobile 7, a platform with which the software giant aims to regain the lost ground in terms of market share. However, Windows Mobile 7 will not be made available anytime soon, as the operating system has been hit with delays.
Instead, the Redmond company is gearing up for the delivery of an interim release of Windows Mobile, namely version 6.5. In this regard, Evans Data's Wireless Development Survey indicated that a quarter of developers continued to point to potential revenue as the most relevant factor when building applications, with 21% targeting increased marketing opportunities, and just 15% taking into consideration platform openness.
“Despite economic turbulence, 94% of corporate developers expect the development of wireless enterprise applications to either increase (47.6%), or stay the same (46.4%) in the coming year, with the strongest expectations for growth in the Asia-Pacific region. Only 6% of developers expect development efforts to decrease,” Evans Data revealed. Even in the context of the global economic crisis, developers stated that they estimated 2009 would be a profitable year when it came down to enterprise apps for wireless devices.
“These results continue to support significant opportunity within the mobile application development segment for both the corporate enterprise and commercially focused developer,” John Andrews, president and CEO of Evans Data Corp., commented. “Furthermore, mobile developers are beginning to understand that mobile development is now a commercially driven endeavor rather than just [a] technological capability and performance with more than half emphasizing market understanding and marketing skills as key elements to their success.”