Did you forget your: Username / Password ?

Microsoft

TechWell

Home

CM Journal Articles

Short List of Predictions For 2003

Written by Charles Edwards

Thursday, 02 January 2003 16:00

With the current economic and world political trends, 2003 in the software industry could bring anything quite honestly. On the one hand, the world could descend into deeper recession fueled by uncertainty about the whole Middle East situation making the big spenders hold back on serious software investments. And on the other hand if some form of meaningful peace is established and the majority of people begin building on the positives, we could see a release on spending and an economic upturn, leading to more demand for software projects and products. Ultimately the choice it up to each one of us individually, so push for peace!

Predictions

On a macro scale, I prefer to be positive and opt for the peaceful route, bringing prosperity to all. On a more micro scale, my predictions are rather short and sweet:

XP and other Agile processes – From a software development process point of view, I have seen a tremendous interest in all the XP and Agile concepts that are being discussed on the forums during the last year. Obviously, with people under budgetary constraints and being forced to work on smaller projects, these processes will come into their own during the coming year.
MDA – Model Driven Architecture – I think we will see quite a lot of activity in this arena over this year and into the future. I would predict mainly marketing hype with the odd software product implementations during the current year, with not many products actively being taken up commercially. Most people will probably remain skeptical about the promises, but hopefully I’m proved wrong and it’s more successful. I’d certainly like to see it flourish.
.NET – My current activities are all in the J2EE / open / unix / java domain, and for some time I’ve personally not actively followed Microsoft and the progress of .NET and Web Services other than a cursory interest. However it’s a great concept and certainly ripe for general international use. I would imagine that most organizations will be experimenting with this technology within their companies, rather than exposing it to Clients in a B2C or B2B situation.
Open Source Software Generally – For the first time, I’ve started seeing open source software and tools becoming a really viable alternative to the standard software across the board. Looking at various products like openCMS, Eclipse with its plug in’s, JBoss, Red Hat Linux with its OpenOffice, mySQL, php, etc. some of the highly expensive product offerings have to start becoming a threat for companies like Microsoft, BEA, Oracle, Rational and others. With the rapid turn around in updates and fixes one gets in these environments, projects can slowly start unplugging certain tools and platforms and plugging in the free alternatives, without too much of an upset in the process. Once again, I may be wrong, but watch this space – I think it’s going to be one of the most interesting this year and into the future.

May all your processes be peaceful and successful this year!

Charles Edwards has been involved with software development for 22 years. He is a contributing editor for CM Crossroads and an independent consultant who performs RUP implementation for organizations that recognize the need to improve their software development process. He works with and contributes to the http://www.processwave.net web site for process engineers.

You can reach Mr. Charles Edwards by email at charles.edwards@processwave.com

Set as favorite

Bookmark

Email this