Developers Will Ignore Windows 2000, Perhaps Forever
Nearly one-third of corporate development managers expect to never write applications for Windows 2000. Another 60 percent of development managers that do plan to write applications for the new platform say those projects will not occur until at least 2001, according to a study released by Evans Marketing Services (EMS,
www.evansmarketing.com).
"We've known for the last year that corporate America is taking a wait-and-see attitude towards Windows 2000," said Janel Garvin, vice president of research at Evans, in a release. "But the fact that well over half have no plans to write apps for Windows 2000 until 2001 or later and that a large percent of NT users plan never to migrate starts to look like a sea change." Garvin also indicated that support for Linux and Open Source Software is showing signs of growing fast.
Microsoft is taking the report in stride. "I never hold a lot of faith in those studies," responds Peter Ollodart, group manager at Microsoft Corp. (www.microsoft.com). "I can just tell you from my own experience that there's never been so much excitement for corporate development."
The Evans survey was conducted by phone in December 1999 to examine attitudes, usage patterns, and intentions of more than 400 development or IT managers in positions of responsibility at corporations with more than 2000 employees.
More information about the survey can be found on the Evans Web site (www.evansmarketing.com).