Latest Dispatch from the Unix Server Wars
by Dan Olds

The market for Unix systems has become even more competitive over the past year. Only three vendors--Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM--are going after a huge market that is pretty much flat in terms of sales revenue growth. So the Unix market can be described as essentially a zero-sum game; any gains made by one vendor will come out of the hide of one (or both) of the other vendors. READ MORE >

Forrester Predicts IT Spending Slowdown in 2007
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

It's that time of the year again. One IT budget cycle is ending, and another one is beginning, and everyone is trying to figure out if the market for information technology will grow again in the coming year. Growth in IT spending is a leading indicator for all of the vendors, companies, and IT personnel who participate in the commercial computing realm, so there is a lot riding on how IT spending goes up or down in any given year. READ MORE >

Evans Data Cases Programming Language Popularity
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Two recent reports from Evans Data have provided some insight into what is going on in the programming profession these days. One report, released in late November, is based on a poll of programmers in North America and gets a sense of the programming languages they use to create applications. But the other report, from October, is perhaps more stunning. It shows that by 2009--if Evans Data's projections are right--there will be a lot more programmers in the world from places other than North America, and what they do might matter a whole lot more. READ MORE >

The X Factor: You Can't Steal What's Free, But You Can Pay a Lot for Something That Isn't Worth It
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Back in the early 1990s, when IBM was on the rocks after its mainframe business imploded and the world shifted to cheaper Unix servers and client/server development was just getting underway, the Wall Street Journal ran a multi-page story that I have never forgotten. The story was one of hubris, of Big Blue's lack of understanding of how the market had changed so much around it that it took the company the better part of six years to find its feet again. READ MORE >