Software Development Predictions For 2009

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister lays out his development predictions for 2009. These include further struggles from Microsoft in retooling its image, a more open source mindset for Java, twilight for Sun, the Web as platform of choice, and a dearth of innovation due to dwindling economic prospects. 'When customers aren't buying, tool vendors don't innovate — so don't expect many groundbreaking new technologies to debut this year,' McAllister writes, adding that smart companies will realize that 'process automation is one of the best ways to reduce costs in any business,' making 2009 the ideal time to 'revisit old software schemes that got shelved back when staffing budgets were flush.'"

Comments

On the contrary

[A beautiful mind]

Historical trend shows that when the economy is in a recession/crisis/bad shape, that's when people turn towards the radically new. Sort of like a forest fire, it opens up opportunities for startups and new things.

Re:On the contrary

[ionix5891]

thats assuming the rotten trees get burned and leave space for fresh younglings

in our case the rotten trees got bailed out

Re:On the contrary

[supersnail]

Sorry but I cant think of a single company/brand/product that had its origins in the Great Depression.

Up till 2002 the software industry was counter-cyclic with the rest of the economy. When times got tough companies spent more on computers and associated software to save costs or gain competetive edge.

But the low hanging fruit is gone and IT departments are just another big budget item that needs cutting. Particularly in the current cluster f***ed economy -- can you think of any software that would get you easier, indeed any, credit from the bank, or, software that would help you sell your latest high tech gizmo to someone who just lost thier job and is having thier mortgage foreclosed?

Spending on sex, gambling and drugs goes up in hard times, but, the first two are a done deal as far a software is concerned and the third is in a market so free that the competition will kill you.

         

Re:On the contrary

[Sobrique]

Not at all - low hanging fruit may be gone, but 'sloppy' implementations of IT systems are widespread and rife. I do IT for an 'outsource support' provider - many of our customers are in a position where revisiting their IT systems and working practices around them will provide massive dividends.

Whether they will or not, is another matter - I suspect it's much more likely that they're going to keep their heads down, and work to 'lowest common denominator' IT services.

Re:On the contrary

[Dutch Gun]

Sorry but I cant think of a single company/brand/product that had its origins in the Great Depression.

Hewlett-Packard is one.

Spending on sex, gambling and drugs goes up in hard times, but, the first two are a done deal as far a software is concerned and the third is in a market so free that the competition will kill you.

Apparently, people also still tend to buy video games, lucky for me. Naturally, no industry is *completely* free of belt-tightening, but among my circle of friends and colleagues, the market appears to be reasonably stable.

You also have to keep in mind that *most* people, even in this economy, are employed and still doing well. The US unemployment rate is at,what, around 6.7 percent or so, or about one in every fifteen people? Around 4 percent of the country is ALWAYS employed, generally due to some chronic issue (can't or won't work for some reason) or just due to normal between-job transitions. It sounds about right - I've been unemployed for about 5 percent of my career. It doesn't take much - a six month stretch in an otherwise employed 10 year career.

The economy slows down not necessarily when people are in dire straits, but when they reign in their spending for fear their job may be next on the cutting block. Expenses may go up a bit, the belts get a bit tighter, which propagates to others. But even in good times, businesses try not to spend money frivolously anyhow. Besides, there are always going to be businesses and people that are surviving, even thriving during these times.

But the low hanging fruit is gone and IT departments are just another big budget item that needs cutting. Particularly in the current cluster f***ed economy -- can you think of any software that would get you easier, indeed any, credit from the bank, or, software that would help you sell your latest high tech gizmo to someone who just lost thier job and is having thier mortgage foreclosed?

What makes software and IT so special that it can be cut before everything else? Businesses of all types and sizes are more reliant on computers than ever before, and those needs don't disappear during a slow economy. Sure, you won't see an orgy of tech spending like during dot-com booms, but no company in their right minds would just axe their IT department any more than they'd eliminate their accounting department.

Spending on sex, gambling and drugs goes up in hard times, but, the first two are a done deal as far a software is concerned and the third is in a market so free that the competition will kill you.

Apparently, people also still tend to buy video games, lucky for me. Naturally, no industry is *completely* free of belt-tightening, but among my circle of friends and colleagues, the market appears to be reasonably stable. And our companies all purchase other software on a regular basis. The economy still works in lean times, just a little more slowly and a little less comfortably.

Re:On the contrary

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Let me google that for you.... Oh! Here it is!

Re:On the contrary

[DuckDodgers]

The 6.7% unemployment figure does not factor people who have stopped looking for new work because they had no luck for over a year. And unfortunately, the market only makes that worse. "This applicant hasn't worked in 8 months. He must not be any good, let's just throw out his resume without even conducting a phone interview." The problem becomes self-perpetuating.

The 6.7% figure also doesn't factor people who went from software analyst, machinist, or corporate accountant to janitor, grocery store cashier, or burger flipper. For that matter, it doesn't count people who went from full time at one company to part time at another.

Depending upon the news source you trust, the real unemployment figure in the US is closer to 15%.

Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

is very difficult, especially of the future.

2009

[mrthoughtful]

Hm. How about this:
(1) The majorty of humanity will carry on buying OEM MS operating systems
(2) Apple will produce something sleek, shiny, and expensive
(3) Linux users will think that 2009 will be when Linux will move (at last) into the mainstream userbase. They will be wrong.
(4) The majority of humanity will carry on using Internet Explorer, which will continue to annoy every web developer who doesn't have a MS qualification.
(5) Sun will trudge on.
(6) Cloud computing will still be used by academics and hackers.
(7) Java will continue to have it's mixture of fans and foes. But not much else.
(8) Same goes for BEA, etc.
(9) Innovation will happen in ways that you least expect.
(10) Oh - that year went by so fast.
(11) But now I am out of a job because the banks took my money and made a profit, then made a loss and took my money again.

Re:2009

[Eivind]

Probably most of these will be true, it's hardly surprising that mostly the world continues as it has.

The IE-thing though, I see sligthly differently. It's true that most people use IE. But it is also true that IE has seen a steady decline the last 2 years. Like you, I think the trends will continue much as they are, but that still means a continous downwards trend.

For the websites we run at work (I work for a web-development company that carries the websites of around 1500 norwegian companies, including a dozen of the larger ones) 2 years ago we saw 80% IE on average (more on grandma-type websites, less on technical ones), one year ago it was at about 73%, and now in december it was at 65%.

I don't care much about IE, but I do care about healthy competition. My ideal world would have no single browser above 50%. That's the best guarantee that people will not develop exclusively for ONE browser.

Re:2009

[wisty]

(12) Lispers will remain quietly smug. Except Paul Graham, who will be vocally smug.
(13) Pythoneers will remain vocally smug, except Guido who is busy doing real work.
(14) Open source software development remain 5 years ahead of Microsofts, except for the GUI, which lags by a decade.
(15) Someone will write a new distributed version control system.
(16) New web frameworks are written in Python (x3), Ruby (x2) and Cobol. Database work is still difficult.
(17) .net is upgraded to another version. Nobody had figured out what the previous version did.
(18) Scrum get's a new acronym, to the disgust of its advocates.
(19) Outside of a select few programmers and /.ers, nobody in the real world cares.

Innovation is bad times

[N1AK]

Although the article may be correct that historically innovation died away during financially poor times I do wonder whether this will continue to be the case.

Everything in life has a cost, why look into the minor ones when your rolling in so much cash it doesn't matter? What may happen is that although less money is spent on new research and developement, some of the better products already developed become more widely deployed as people realise they need to do things better.

From a personal perspective I have spent a lot more time looking at my finances in the last 12 months, exactly because as I earn more than I spend I (incorrectly) didn't bother in the past. I'm argueable better off now than last year exactly because of the financial crisis.

For an economy the failure of some ineffective businesses allows others to fill the niche, it encourages people to question suppliers while looking for economies.

None of this makes the recession a good thing, and I'd argue that a lot of our goverment's (in the UK) actions will cause more problems than they solve, but I hope the innovators of the world don't believe that now isn't as good a time as any to find improvements.