Each year BZ Research (publishers of SD Times and Eclipse Review) do a ‘Java Use and Awareness‘ survey of the SD Times readers. One of the question is ‘What java development environment do you use?’ They have been doing this since 2002, so you can see some interesting trends.
Not sure how I missed their most recent survey but it is from December 2005. They have given me permission to blog the results of the Java IDE question. (btw, it is also referenced in the Feb. 1, page 12, edition of SD Times.) The good news is Eclipse grew 9% in 2005 and now stands at 65.1%. If you add in the IDE’s that are based on Eclipse, the number gets even better. Interesting, one IDE that is claiming great momentum seems to have no growth.
Measuring the success of Eclipse or any open source project is always a challenge. Therefore, market research like this always raises my interest. I also like the BZ Research survey for a couple of reasons:
- I guess the obvious reason being Eclipse is on top
- The sample size is large, in this case 621, and the sample is derived from the readership of SD Times; which I believe provides a good sample of the IT industry. Do people agree with this assertion?
- It provides trend data going back to 2002, so you can see what changes are occurring.
btw, sorry for the poor graphic quality.
