IDE Usage Trends | Forrester

February 12th, 2008

Jeffrey Hammond

With contributors:

Carey Schwaber , David D'Silva

Summary

Forrester surveyed 703 application development professionals who subscribe to 1105 Media's .NET or Java newsletters and are actively involved in .NET or Java development to understand their integrated development environment (IDE) usage patterns and attitudes toward open source. What did we learn? Microsoft's Visual Studio and Eclipse are clear market favorites, but IBM Rational Application Developer/WebSphere Studio Application Developer and Sun Microsystems' NetBeans also have pockets of strength. While two-thirds of Java developers use open source IDEs, their use has more to do with low cost than source code availability. Some IT shops are using IDE commoditization to "do more with less" by reallocating savings or are simply pocketing the difference and reducing budgets. Developers in both groups crave ease of use and effective platform support, but Java developers also prioritize low total cost of ownership (TCO) and plug-in availability, while .NET developers are more interested in a vibrant online developer community.

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