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DEVELOPERS' CHOICE

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PCQ Bureau
New Update
.NET IDE   
Development Platform
Java IDE
CASE Tools
Bug-tracking/De-bugging
Testing Tools
Versioning Tools
RDBMs
Application Server
Packaging Tools
.NET IDE

This was a one-sided battle, with most votes going in favor of Microsoft Visual Studio.NET to the tune of 96%. In fact this was the only category where we had only one winner and no others even at a close second. Companies of all sizes said that this was their primary platform of choice. The second question, where we asked companies for all the .Net IDEs they used, the only other choice that managed any significant votes was Borland's Delphi for .Net. These too came mostly from

Hyderabad.

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Development Platform

Here, we asked each company whether the prime platform they used was Java, .NET, or other. There was very strong competition between Java and .NET, with 41% of the respondents choosing the former, and .NET close behind the heels with 34% of the votes. We didn't get significant votes for any third platform.

Between these two platforms, we found most of the large companies that voted said that they used Java. In fact in companies with 500+ developers, 23% said they used .NET, while 48% said they used Java. We found that .NET was the primary choice in companies with 51 to 100 developers. Out of the companies that voted from Bangalore, Hyderabad, and

Pune, Java got the highest votes. Most companies in Delhi, Chennai, and Pune chose .NET.

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Java IDE

Sun's Java Studio is the winner, followed by Borland JBuilder,

Microsoft's J# and J++, open-source Eclipse and IBM's Visual Age.

Incidentally, Eclipse earlier belonged to IBM, who released it into

open-source in Feb this year. Also, IBM withdrew from the marketing

of Visual Age for Java Professional Edition v4.0 in March last year.

IBM now recommends existing users of Visual Age to upgrade to

WebSphere Studio Site Developer.

Java Studio got the highest votes amongst software development

houses of all sizes. It also got the highest votes in Delhi, Mumbai,

Bangalore, and Pune. JBuilder is stronger amongst larger companies

compared to Microsoft's offering. Eclipse didn't get any votes from

Hyderabad or Chennai; getting most from Bangalore. Visual Age is

still being used by large software houses. Besides the primary IDE,

the only other name that came up was Symantec's Visual Café.

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CASE Tools

CASE stands for Computer Aided Software Engineering. BM's Rational Rose is the undisputed leader in this category. The closest competitor, CA's

ERwin, was behind by 77 points, followed by Win Case.

Borland's Together Control Center barely made it into the Devlopers' Choice Club. Interestingly, a large number of companies responded with "don't know/can't say" when we asked them which primary CASE tool they used. Possibly, not too many are using CASE tools in India. Rational rose got the maximum votes across companies of all sizes, followed by CA's

ERwin. Bangalore and Delhi fetched the maximum number of responses for Rational Rose and CA, while Together Control and Win Case got their numbers from

Hyderabad. Besides the primary tools, the only other case tool that came up was Segue

Silktest.

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Bug-tracking/De-bugging

This was the only category where an open-source tool emerged as the winner, and the only other members of the Developers' Choice Club were in house or customized debugging tools and Microsoft Visual Studio's built-in debugging tool.

This was also the only category where the number of people who were not using any tools was equal to the number of votes obtained by the winner,

Bugzilla. Does that mean that there aren't enough good debugging tools? Or people are more comfortable using their own systems? Bugzilla is licensed under the Mozilla Public License, and was the favorite debugging tool amongst smaller companies, gaining votes from companies with up to 100 developers. It also got the highest votes from companies in Hyderabad and

Bangalore. Of companies that voted for Visual Studio, most were development houses with up to 50 developers.

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Testing Tools

Mercury Interactive's WinRunner/LoadRunner tools are the most popular testing tools, getting 32% of total votes.

This was followed by IBM's Robot and PurifyPlus. Interestingly, in this category as well, a lot of companies didn't mention what testing tool they were using. Mercury got the highest votes across companies of all sizes, followed by IBM. It also got the highest votes across all regions except

Hyderabad. Compuware was the strongest amongst all in Hyderabad, and didn't get any votes from

Pune. Compuware's QA Center got the same number of votes as custom-built or inhouse testing tools.

The only other tool that came up besides the primary tool was Empirix. Case tools was the

only other category besides debugging tools, where the number of users not using these tools was very high.

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Versioning Tools

Three tools made it to the Club in this category, with Microsoft Visual SourceSafe being on the top spot with Rational ClearCase & ClearQuest and the freely available CVS (Concurrent Versioning System) far behind in the second and third positions. Visual SourceSafe received more than 50% of the total votes, and got the highest votes from companies of all sizes. Amongst all companies that voted for IBM, most were large software development houses having more than 500 developers.

Nearly an equal number of companies voted for CVS as IBM in Bangalore. IBM's

versioning tools were also stronger than Microsoft's in Hyderabad. The vote

distribution for CVS was evenly spread across companies of all sizes. When we

asked for all the versioning tools that companies used, besides their primary

choice, we got two other names. These were Linux Subversion and CA's AllFusion

Endeavor Change Manager.

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RDBMs

In a dipstick that we did before doing the survey we found that software development companies have a lot of influence in the databases used by enterprises. In the survey, Microsoft's SQL Server emerged the winner, followed by Oracle. Two others entered this Club, MySQL, an open-source database, and IBM's DB2 and Informix family. Of those who voted for SQL Server, most were development houses, with up to 100 developers, while those for Oracle were in the 100+ and 500+ developers bracket. Of the votes that came from Hyderabad and Delhi, majority were for Oracle.

Microsoft was strong in Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore. IBM didn't get any votes from Hyderabad. When asked which other databases companies were using in addition to the primary one, the only other choices we got were PostgreSQL, an open-source database, and Progress DBMS.

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Application Server

MMicrosoft's Windows 2003 Server tops the chart by a wide margin, followed by IBM's WebSphere, the open-source Tomcat app, Bea WebLogic and Oracle's app server. A lot of people also said they were using multiple application servers based on the J2EE platform depending upon their client needs. Of the votes that came for this, most were divided between companies having up to 50 developers and those with over 500 developers. Microsoft was strong across developer companies of all sizes. Of the companies who chose IBM, most were development houses having 500+ developers.

WebSphere didn't get any votes from Chennai, nor did Bea WebLogic. Oracle was a little ahead of Microsoft's app server in Hyderabad. In addition to the primary app server, a lot of companies were also using Jboss, Macromedia's Jrun/ Coldfusion and Borland's Enterprise Server.

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Packaging Tools

Packaging tools make it possible for a user to install the software. They're like the front-end to software development. InstallShield is the most popular packaging tool amongst software development companies, getting 35% of the total votes, followed by Microsoft's Windows Installer. The third one is a little surprising because it isn't really known for its packaging tool. Nullsoft is more known for popular apps like Winamp and ShoutCast Server. Surprisingly, another versry popular packaging tools company, Wise Solutions didn't make it to the club.

InstallShield got the highest votes across all regions except Chennai and Pune. Microsoft's Windows Installer scored higher here. Nullsoft didn't get any votes in Chennai and Delhi. InstallShield was more preferred by large companies over Microsoft, and the reverse was true for the smaller

companies having up to 100 developers.

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