Cloud, mobility and open source drive application development

The worldwide application development (AD) software market is expected to reach more than $9 billion in 2012, an increase of 1.8 percent over 2011, according to Gartner. Open source software tools will continue to erode revenue for some AD categories in design, testing and Web development. This is being driven primarily by the success of Eclipse and NetBeans, as well as by overall revitalization of the market by new small software providers looking for technical and market disruptive approaches for offering products. Limited budgets and economic conditions compelling enough to focus on cost reduction, also fuel the use of open-source software in various development projects.