By Reg. Charney
Over the last fifteen months, the major growth in languages has been those directly related to the Internet. Thus, XML, Perl, HTML, and Java have flourished as shown in Chart #1. However, even these high-flyers have suffered reverses in the last few months as shown in Chart #2. It is interesting to note that the highest flyers are also showing the most deceleration in demand.
In this issue, you may have noticed some platform omissions including Oracle 2000 and AIX. While there are many users on these platforms, their growth on a month by month basis and over the last fifteen months has been so minimal that they will no longer be included. I will let you interpret that as you see fit.
One of the major changes in the demand deceleration of platforms is that Windows 2000 has now joined the other platforms in a decreased demand. If you recall, last month, Windows 2000 was the only platform to buck the downward trend. Interestingly enough, while individual flavors of Windows have decreased in demand, overall demand for Windows is still growing, albeit slowly. This includes all dialects of Windows.
You must have been on an island not to know that LinuxWorld was in San Jose in August. It had so many exhibitors that some of them overflowed the exhibits hall and ended up out in the halways. Rumor has it that the next year's West Coast LinuxWorld will move to San Francisco&Mac226;s Moscone Centre to handle the larger crowds expected next year. There was also a lot of big names there: IBM, Dell, Compaq SGI, HP, Sun, as well as the usual Linux crowd like our own VA Linux and all the major Linux distributors. The BSD folks also had an interesting presence.
If anything could be said about future trends, it had to be Linux for embedded systems. In contrast, last years theme was Linux in the business world. This year delivered on a lot of that promise. Most of the software exhibitors were providers of B2B solutions. Two products caught my eye. PocketLinux]s Linux on a Compaq iPaq is a color PDA running Linux that can be Internet enabled. It will give Palm a real run for its money. Cost about $500. There is also a B&W Helio for about $200 (www.PocketLinux.com). eGrail (www.eGrail.org) is an Open Source provider of content management software for the web. It is server based with access to the central repository and tools through any browser. It is a really slick solution.
Reg. Charney is a programmer, system designer, and marketer with a keen interest in Linux going back to pre-1.0 days. He also heads up the U.S. chapter of the ACCU, an international organization devoted to assisting members improve their programming knowledge and skills. He can be reached through the ACCU's web site at www.accu-usa.org.