Developers shunning Microsoft Vista

The Evans Data's Spring 2008, North American Development Survey found that eight per cent of developers are working on Vista applications, compared to nearly fifty per cent focusing on Windows XP, which Microsoft will cease selling on June 30th.

"Developers have taken a wait and see approach to Vista", said John Andrews, Evans Data’s president.

"The new operating system has had more than its share of problems and the desire to move from XP on the Windows platform is still lagging - that coupled with interest in alternative operating systems is suppressing development activity and that in turn will further erode Vista’s acceptance."

The survey also found that the majority of developers will still be favouring XP in 2009. Overall 24 per cent said they would be focussing on Vista next year, compared to 29 percent for XP.

Over all just over two thirds of developers were writing for Microsoft software, including and Windows server 2003 and 2008. Over 15 per cent reported that they would be concentrating on Linux applications.

The survey also showed that security is a much higher priority in recent years, with two thirds of North American developers taking time to build in security before laying down code.