Vista putting pressure on Windows developers
21 December, 2006
By Paul Weinberg
Something close to a panic is gripping Windows software
developers who are faced with making significant and
quick adjustments, coupled with with substantial costs
and risks to the project, in order to create new applications
under the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista operating
system, according to Mark Driver, vice president and
research director at Gartner.
These adjustments entail migrating or rewriting tens
of millions of lines of legacy Windows code, some
dating back to the introduction of the Windows 95
operating system, into the.Net framework, the software
platform for the next generation of application development
in the Microsoft Windows world.
"It is a necessary migration or forced march
so to speak, in large part because everything in the
Microsoft universe is increasingly moving around the
.Net infrastructure," stated Driver.
"Everything in Vista is based on .Net, or the
vast majority of the features are based on .Net. If
I am willing to write leading Vista applications,
I have to be on .Net."
Microsoft is placing a lot of pressure on Windows
developers with an announcement that older programming
tools like its ever popular Visual Basic programming
language and development environment for pre.Net applications
will be discontinued in 2008.
But for these vendors, stated Driver, it is easier
said than done, just in terms of time frame and cost.
A portion of the Window developer base, particularly
the larger software developers, has been making the
adjustments in terms of code and skill sets, over
the last five years, he stated. "But there is
an awful lot of legacy code which has not been migrated."
Some of the smaller independent software vendors
may fall by the wayside in the current switch to .Net,
that is being compared to the mass conversion of the
IT industry from the DOS to the Windows operating
systems more than decade ago.
Driver recalled how DOS based developers who were
not successful in making the transition to Windows
ultimately and quickly disappeared.
"We are finding a similar [situation] with .Net.
The companies that are hard-pressed, they tend to
obviously have much tighter budgets. They don't have
the internal resources to make this internal migration.
They tend to develop a piece of code and leverage
it for a longer period of time."
Nonetheless, legacy code should be less of an issue
for large corporate customers that are transferring
their applications to Vista over time, stated Warren
Shiau, senior associate and lead analyst in IT research
at the Strategic Counsel.
"There are lots of ways to get around the issue;
so it shouldn't be a problem if users know what's
up. I would assume that by the time Vista goes out
of the door, anyone in an enterprise scale organization
is going to up-to-date on things."
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