Software-Dev Tools

After a two-year lull, software development is on the upswing once again.

For the past four years MS Visual Basic has been winning in this category. This year, too, Microsoft has won, but for a different product, MS VisualStudio. In the number two position is Oracle Developer 2k with a UPI of 67%. The next two in the list, Java and IBM Rational, are fairly close to each other, with UPIs of 26% and 24%, respectively. At number five are Open-source tools. The others that got some support are Symantec and Borland.

From the three regions polled– North, South and West– VisualStudio got almost an equal number of votes. Also, it got about the same number of votes from companies in the three IT spend brackets polled– those with an IT spend of between Rs 25 to Rs 50 lakh, those between Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore and those over Rs one

crore.

As is to be expected, Microsoft got its biggest push from the software vertical and a large one from

BPO.

Oracle emerged the strongest in the North zone and among companies with an IT spend of above Rs one crore. In terms of verticals, it

got its maximum votes from telecom and the least from software.

In terms of brand loyalty, 11% of Oracle users and 17% of Java users are willing to shift to

Microsoft. While only 5% of Microsoft users and 3% of Java users may want to shift to Oracle.

Also, from amongst the users of other products, 31% say that they may shift to Microsoft, 14% say they may shift to Oracle and only 3% say that they may move to Java.

All that information is there in the brand switch matrix below.

This is the fifth year of Microsoft on top. One wonders what the story will be next year.