14 DAY TRIAL // It's nothing but love for Windows XP and all scraps, crumbs and leftovers for Windows Vista. One inherent consequence of having an operating system dig its roots into the market for five years, is the creation of not only a loyal user base, but also of a community of developers that find it equally difficult to transition to a new platform. Additionally, Windows Vista has virtually changed the rules for software developers with the introduction of the User Account Control, forcing them to rethink products in order to run with standard user privileges. This has caused developers to steer clear of Vista, as long as XP still has a strong grip of the operating system market, a situation illustrated amply by Evans Data's Spring 2008, North American Development Survey.
"Developers have taken a wait and see approach to Vista", revealed John Andrews, Evans Data's President and CEO. "The new operating system has had more than its share of problems and the desire to move from XP on the Windows platform is still lagging - that coupled with interest in alternative operating systems is suppressing development activity and that in turn will further erode Vista's acceptance."
As far as North American developers are concerned, only 8% are focusing their products on the latest operating system from Microsoft, with over half still building applications tailored for XP. And it is indeed going to get better for Vista, now that Service Pack 1 has been offered to end users, but not by that much and not until 2009. Come next year, 24% of developers expect to start building for Vista, with another 29% refusing to move away from XP.
"Other versions of Windows, including 2003 and Windows server 2008, when added to the above numbers bring the total forecast for Windows development in North America to just over 67% expecting to target some form of Windows in 2009. Over 15% expect to target Linux", Evans Data also found.