“Is Microsoft losing its sway over business software
developers?”
“The Linux operating system and the Java language appear to be
the chief competitors. Programmers interviewed this week said they
are moving away from Windows development for three reasons: the
need to build Web-based e-commerce applications that span more than
just Windows-based systems, the lure of greater financial rewards
for Java programming skills, and a deep distrust of Microsoft’s
overall motives.
Two recent studies support the trend: According to the Gartner
Group, the number of programmers targeting Windows as their primary
development environment will fall from 65 percent in 1998 to 40
percent next year. At the same time, developers writing
browser-based software will rise from 18 percent to 40 percent.
While many of those browser-based applications will run in
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, they could run equally well in
Netscape Communications’ Navigator browser or embedded browsers
from other makers.
Another study by Forrester Research found that programmers using
the Java and CORBA (common object request broker architecture)
programming models outnumber those targeting Microsoft’s COM
programming model by nearly a 2-to-1 margin: 44 percent to 24
percent.”