IDC's Application Development Software service combines data and strategic analyses to provide deep insight into developer attitudes and preferences for development tools, languages, and techniques. The service aids in understanding trends and transformations in the markets for professional design, construction, and development software and tools. It explores productive, agile, and disruptive development methodologies, technologies, and dynamics impacting software design and development. This service also examines paradigm shifts in development languages and architectures, development tools, extended development environments, automatic code generation from high-level models and business rule specifications, and best practices for the development, design, and construction of applications. Subscribers to this service receive direct access to IDC's top industry experts, who can supply competitive analysis, marketing and positioning advice, community and audience strategies, as well as pricing and sales strategies, help identify strategic partnering opportunities, assist with speaking to the investment community, provide press quotes, and more.

• 3GL and 4GL languages and tools, including unified development environment (UDE) tools
• Web design and development tools
• Software construction components
• Model-driven development tools
• Business rule engines

• Abstract approaches and methodologies including simulation, modeling, component architectures, and business rules engines that are transforming software development to achieve shorter project timelines, handle increased complexity and performance demands, and increase developer productivity
• Developer preferences, attitudes, current practices, and influences on product evaluation and purchasing along with demographic information collected various IDC surveys
• The impact of open source software on the application development software markets

1. What methodologies and technologies are developers adopting to increase their productivity?
2. How are developer skills evolving in light of new languages and tools, new architectures and methodologies, and new platforms and form factors?
3. How is the popularity of the Web and mobile platforms changing the landscape for development tools?
4. How are developers navigating the J2EE and .NET language and platform divide?
5. What impact will abstract development methodologies like model-driven development and business rules management systems have on application development?
6. What are the opportunities and challenges of the increasing adoption of plug-in or AJAX technologies to address rich Internet applications (RIAs)?
7. What are the best strategies to monetize application development software in view of the expanding open source ecosystem?

IDC's Application Development Software service examines how software providers are positioning themselves to compete in the application software development market. This service reviews strategies, market positioning, and future direction of several providers in the application development software market, including:

Adobe, Apple, Altova, CA, Cognos, Compuware, Corticon, Embarcadero, Eclipse Foundation, Fair Isaac, Fujitsu, Google, Hitachi Ltd., HP, IBM, IDS Scheer AG, ILOG, Information Builders, Intel, Intuit, JetBrains, Magic Software, Microfocus, Microsoft, Morfik, Mozilla Foundation, Nokia, Oracle, Progress Software, Rogue Wave Software, SAS Institute, Siemens AG, Software AG, Software Engineering Institute, salesforce.com, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Symantec, TIBCO, Unify, Unisys, Versata, Visual Numerics, and Yahoo!.

This service focuses on the following core research. In addition to the insight provided in this service, IDC may conduct additional research on specific topics, or emerging market segments, via research offerings that require additional IDC funding and client investment:

This document provides a detailed look at the development software market, with a five-year revenue forecast for the covered submarkets in the Application Development Software market.

Open source software, especially Eclipse, has significantly impacted software development software vendors. This document examines what will be next, why this is happening, and how users and vendors should react.

Leading vendors are offering new features and extended capabilities in the latest generation of unified development environments and frameworks to improve the way applications are created. This document examines the advanced capabilities and features of the newer generation of tools along with more advanced developer methodologies that increase developer productivity and increase development ROI.

IDC offers a complete market intelligence solution customized to meet your business requirements. The array of products and services available to you includes:

• The opportunity to have your specific questions answered through personal interaction with industry experts who cover the topics and markets in your service
• Around-the-clock access to our market intelligence on idc.com, IDC's personalized Web experience
• A view of the market's future with 12 months of continuous intelligence about its direction and the reasons behind it, along with actionable advice for taking advantage of existing and emerging opportunities
• Special client discount pricing on purchases of research from other services
• Complimentary admission to IDC's annual Directions conference, where you'll hear our latest forecasts and network with IDC analysts and other industry professionals
• Complimentary invitations to monthly executive telebriefings, interactive forums designed to provide you with insights about research and strategies directly from IDC analysts

To find out how our flexible packaging options can meet your specific business needs, please contact your IDC sales executive.

As a privately held company, IDC believes that our customers are our primary constituency. A large percentage of every revenue dollar is reinvested back into our products, including more analysts, more geographic coverage, and extensive primary research.

Our steady growth over the past 10-plus years reflects our commitment to investing in our customers.