Violet Lieby
831.425.8063
vlieby@evansdata.com
SANTA CRUZ, CA, May 23, 2005 - In light of Microsoft’s intentions to stop supporting Visual Basic 6 and earlier, developers have been migrating to other languages, according to Evans Data Corporation’s Spring 2005 North American Development Survey. Forty percent of developers in North America use VB6 some of the time now with that figure expected to drop by nearly 23% next year.
While 60% of VB6 developers expect to increase their usage of VB.NET next year, 20% are expecting to increase their usage of Java, 37% expect to use C# more and 10% will increase their usage of “other†programming languages instead.
Current VB.NET developers are also in a state of flux with 28% expecting to decrease their usage of VB.NET. Of these developers 50% expect to increase their usage of C# and 20% expect to increase their usage of Java.
“Microsoft’s decision to end support for VB6 has had unexpected consequences for the language and for their intended goal of migrating VB6 developers to VB.NET. The reality is that developers are exploring their options to see if there are other programming languages that will work for them without the steep learning curve that VB.NET brings with it,†said Steve Fullmer, Evans Data’s North American analyst.
Other findings from the May 2005 survey of more than 400 developers in North America:
- The incidence of security breaches in North America has taken a sharp drop in the last six months from 59% reporting one or more breaches six months ago to 41% reporting one or more breaches today.
- Developers’ plans to develop new applications for 64-bit architectures jumped significantly in the last six months. Plans to develop 64-bit apps in more than 2 years jumped from 6% six months ago to 30% in this latest survey.
- Developers have mixed strategies for bringing software packages to new platforms, 22% are considering shifting to a Web-based user interface and 20% are considering rewriting the code for the new platform, 43% are not considering a new platform at all.
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 2007 Evans Data Corporation. All other company names, products and services mentioned in this document are the trademarks and property of their respective owners.
###