And to think Microsoft used to be popular with the developer crowd...
Not anymore. A recent report from Evans Data shows fewer than one in 10 software developers writing applications for Windows Vista this year. Eight percent. This is perhaps made even worse by the corresponding data that shows 49 percent of developers writing applications for Windows XP.
Such appreciation for history is not likely to warm the cockles of Microsoft's heart, especially when Linux is getting lots of love from developers (13 percent writing apps for it this year and 15.5 percent in 2009). The Mac? I don't have any equivalent data via Evans Data. But the Mac OS has rocketed by 380 percent as a targeted development platform, Evans Data told Computerworld.
The numbers don't get much better for Vista in 2009: 24 percent (compared with 29 percent for XP). That's a big step up from 8 percent, but is it a sign of momentum to come or just a temporary stopgap while developers wait until Windows 7?
I installed Vista on my desktop computer, and have regretted doing it ever since. My laptop's still on XP, and it's what I use 99% of the time. Vista's pretty awful. Microsoft needs a new OS fast or people will continue to jump to Linux and (more importantly) Mac. I'm pretty close to making the Mac leap... my next computer?
