Developers shun Vista, too

Posted Jun 16th 2008 4:28PM by Carol Vinzant
Filed under: Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Technology

A recent study by Evans Data Corporation shows that developers don't like Vista any more than the rest of us. Six times as many are clinging to XP than switching to Vista. Only 8% of developers are working on programs to run on Vista, compared with 50% who are writing for Windows XP. That's not good news for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), who hopes that its customers will grudgingly tolerate the withdrawal of XP on June 30.

Many are begging Microsoft to relent, especially InfoWorld. The developers do plan on doing more work for the troubled operating system next year, but still not as many as are hanging onto XP. Next year, 24% of developers expect to target Vista while 29% will still work with XP.

Evans data doesn't say how much the Vista disaster has helped Linux and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), but it's clear Vista has sent many fleeing. eWeek reported last week that Apple now has a 14% market share -- nearly four times what it had in 2005. Using data from NPD Group, eWeek points out that Apple sells two out of three computers in the $1,000 and above category. That's largely because Macs are still way, way more expensive than PCs. If Apple ever got around to offering a computer at a price the masses were willing to pay, Microsoft might be in trouble. Microsoft may not hear the complaints about its operating system, but it understands that people want to pay less for computers.

Tags: aapl, linux, microsoft, msft, operating system, OperatingSystem, vista, xp

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

6-16-2008 @ 5:32PM

Mark said...

Which would be true if most developers weren't actually writing their applications in .Net which actually runs on Vista or XP so, whilst they're not targeting specific Windows features, they're still going to work on it.

As for 'a Vista disaster' you may actually want to look at the global shipment figures for new PCs - particularly consumer orientated sales - and then hazard a guess a what OS they run (Hint: it's not XP, Linux or OSX).

The remainder of your article is equally poor in quality - eWeek's figures count for bricks and mortar sales in the US, not on-line sales and not global sales. Care to have a guess at which massive PC manufacturer isn't included (Hint:... oh bugger that, you'll just get it wrong: it's Dell). Apple's market share is actually much lower than 14% - probably around the 6 or 7% mark which is what IDC and Gartner's more accurate surveys put it at.

Please try harder. Journalistic incompetence seems to be on the rise these days but then that's what you get when any muppet can write a blog.