SANTA CRUZ, CA. August 8, 2011 – The Mac operating systems has surpassed Linux in popularity as a development environment in North America according to the recently released Evans Data North American Development survey. Although Windows remains overwhelmingly the most popular operating system for development with over 80% of developers using it, Linux has slipped to third place with only 5.6 percent using it as their primary development platform, while 7.9 percent now use Mac OS.

"Apple has made tremendous strides in the last few years with innovative products and technologies," said Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data Corp. "so it’s quite reasonable to see developers adopting the Mac and its OS as a development environment. Windows firmly remains king, but developers are obviously attracted to Apple’s devices, while at the same time Linux has lost some of its luster after years of only single digit adoption."

Mac OS has not, however, displaced Linux as a development target. Still more than twice as many developers primarily target Linux as do Mac.

Other highlights from this comprehensive survey of over 400 professional software developers in North America, conducted June 2011 include:

---Developers believe Mobile and Cloud development will increase the most in importance over the next three years, followed distantly by open source and plug-in architecture. The DevOps phenomenon will be least important.

---Adobe’s BlazeDS is being well received in North America with over a third of developers using or expecting to use this.

---Almost half (47.3%) of North American developers use or expect to use Java ME.

The Evans Data North American Development survey is conducted bi-annually and is part of the Global Development Survey series. It explores a wide range of development topics including language and platform adoption, mobile development, cloud development, SOA, Database development and other technology adoption.

See complete Table of Contents for the latest edition here:

http://evansdata.com/reports/viewRelease.php?reportID=1

Evans Data Corporation provides regularly updated IT industry market intelligence based on in-depth surveys of the global developer population. Evans' syndicated research includes surveys focused on developers in a wide variety of subjects.

Copyright 2011 Evans Data Corporation. All other company names, products and services mentioned in this document are the trademarks and property of their respective owners.

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