The Forrester Blog For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

SAP's CEO Resigns

David D'Silva — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:48:50 -0500

By George Lawrie

Forrester had heard rumors of restructuring at SAP before the announcement on February 7^th that SAP’s CEO Leo Apotheker has resigned with immediate effect.

The return to joint CEOs with Jim Haggemann-Snabe running product and Bill McDermott running sales is likely to help in focusing on improvements in the field to restore SAP's sales fortunes in a tough market.

The announcement that Vishal Sikka, Chief Technology Officer, has been appointed to the SAP Executive Board may reflects a concern about SAP's ability to innovate - or at least to persuade the Executive Board that it has a clear innovation direction. Forrester analysts like Paul Hammerman have been following these concerns since SAP’s split with Shai Agassi.

Forrester noted the press release also mentioned co founder Hasso Plattner:

"At the request of the SAP Supervisory Board, Hasso Plattner, Co-Founder of SAP and Chairman of the SAP Supervisory Board, will continue to play a strong role in advising the new leaders on technology and product development."

This is probably very re assuring to the old guard SAP users - but does it cut any mustard with the new name targets (in SMB)?

Jim Haggemann-Snabe is a long time SAP employee and joined in 1990. Since July 2008 he has been leading the Business Solutions & Technology organization, responsible for product development of large enterprise solutions, SME solutions, and the technology platform.

This seems an enormous scope. Forrester wonders if Vishal Sikka will assume more of a technology responsibility and Jim will focus more on solutions for SMB? He does seem to have a good sales and channel background.

Forrester Databyte: Application Platform Adoption Trends

Jeffrey Hammond — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:23:46 -0500

As an analyst at Forrester I always look forward to December - not because it's the end of the year or that I have the balance of my vacation days to use up (best laid plans...); December is when we usually get a fresh batch of data from Forrester's annual Enterprise And SMB Software Survey. Each year our team gets to place a few questions into this comprehensive questionnaire, and IT decision makers who have organizational responsibility for custom software development give us some insight into what their shops are doing.

It's always tricky to design our part of the survey - there's so much we'd like to ask, but there's only space for a few questions. On top of that, you ideally want to ask the same questions from year to year so that you can see how the adoption of a particular technology is trending. That said, one question we've managed to keep in the survey over the past three years is related to application platform adoption (see Figure 1). Our findings:

.NET and Java remain the dominant application platforms. Microsoft .NET and Java remain the most widely used platforms, and overlap between the two is considerable: In 2009 46% of Enterprises and 23% of SMBs use both platforms, up from 28% and 21% respectively in 2007. .NET adoption is higher than Java at companies with less than 5000 employees, and Java usage is higher in companies with more than 20,000 employees. It's in the 5,000-19,999 segment that things get interesting. Java has traditional been more highly adopted in our surveys in this segment, but .NET appears to be closing the gap. This year 71% of these very large companies are using Java, while 68% are using .NET.
Mainframe and 4GL use is steadily declining. While 38% of Global 2000 companies (20000+ Employees) are still targeting Mainframe (e.g., zSeries) and Mid-range (e.g., iSeries) platforms, even that group is below the average adoption rate of 41% from 2007. Overall, just one in four shops included these application platforms in their development plans. Does this mean that the Mainframe is going away? Absolutely not! These apps remain common in industries like financial services and retail, where they have historic footholds; but companies are choosing to wall off and maintain existing apps, and instead extend them with Java and SOA technologies. When it comes to 4GLs, we attribute the drop-off in usage to a shift from developing client server apps toward Web-based architectures. As Web apps become the dominant type of applications developers build, 4GLs become less relevant (more on that trend in a future Databyte).
Web 2.0 technologies are gradually emerging as alternatives to .NET and Java. There's a third group of developers out there, that are neither Java jocks nor .NET gurus. These developers choose a different route, based on Web technologies like Javascript, Flash, PHP, Python and Ruby. Web developers have been mainstream outside the firewall for years, but they are also moving into the enterprise, especially as firms invest in the Web as a direct channel to customers and business partners. At this point 1 in 3 shops is using rich internet technologies (e,g, AJAX, Flash). While this looks like a dip from 2007, we think that's actually due to a change in our survey methodology. In 2007 we did not distinguish between RIA platforms and Lightweight Web frameworks like CakePHP, the Zend Framework, and Ruby on Rails. In 2008, we broke these options out separately, and since then we've seen adoption of RIA platforms grow from 26% to 24% and Lightweight Web platform adoption grow from 11% to 16% respectively.
Open source frameworks are for real, PaaS is still nascent. We see steady adoption of open source frameworks like Spring and Hibernate among Java developers, coupled with a steady increase in use of servlet-based architecture, and the use of Apache Tomcat as a primary production application server. One the other hand, it seems the hype over cloud and platform-as-a-service offerings like Google App Engine or Microsoft's Azure is getting ahead of the reality. At this point only 2% of the organizations we surveyed in 2009 are using PaaS technology.

Figure 1: Application Platform Adoption 2007-2009

What this data underscores is that we are seeing steady shifts in the application platform technologies developers use. We think the data also shows that it's increasingly less meaningful to think of the development world in terms of "Java vs. .NET", because you risk missing the increasing importance and adoption of Web technologies that are "Neither of the above". If you're interested in digging into this data in deeper detail drop us a line, we'd be happy to discuss what it means to you and your application development strategy.

Jeffrey

About Forrester's Enterprise And SMB Software Survey:

Forrester's Enterprise And SMB Software Survey, North America And Europe, Q4 2009, was fielded to 2,165 IT executives and technology decision-makers located in Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the US from SMB and enterprise companies with two or more employees. This survey is part of Forrester’s suite of Business Data Services studies. Forrester fielded the survey from September 2009 to November 2009. LinkedIn fielded this survey online on behalf of Forrester. Survey respondent incentives included gift certificates and research summaries. We have provided exact sample sizes in this report on a question-by question basis.

Forrester’s Business Data Services fields eight business-to-business technology studies in 19 countries each calendar year. For quality control, we carefully screen respondents according to job title and function. Business Data Services ensures that the final survey population contains only those with significant involvement in the planning, funding, and purchasing of IT products and services. Additionally, quotas are set for company size (number of employees) and industry as a means of controlling the data distribution and establishing alignment with IT spend calculated by Forrester analysts.

You Should Foster More Software Innovation – But How?

Mike Gilpin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:34:01 -0500

Software innovation plays an increasingly vital role in your success, as software is a key part of more and more products and services, whether on the Web, a phone, a desktop PC, a car, or in your home. But how to get it? I’ve been working in the world of software development for many years, so had a few ideas of my own to start, but I also interviewed fifteen experts across a dozen organizations that excel at software innovation. These experts helped me identify the most important process, organizational, cultural, geographical, and staffing practices that promote software innovation. But this is definitely not a “one size fits all situation” – I found that which practices were most helpful and appropriate varied among different types of organizations.

I’m glad to say that the report I wrote to deliver this advice is now “live”: How To Foster Software Innovation To Exploit The Economic Recovery. It is accompanied by a tool you can download to assess your organization’s capabilities along the several dimensions of practices that help drive software innovation: Software Innovation Assessment Workbook. The tool allows you to tailor the assessment according to your organization type, with three options: Trusted Suppliers, Partner Players, and Software Vendors / Service providers.

Just to whet your appetite, here are a couple of excerpts from the report. First, our definition of software innovation:

Delivering software that transforms or improves a business process, creates or improves a market offering, or enables or improves a business model in a way that boosts value and impact for the enterprise, customers, or partners.

Next, a figure from the report that depicts the various dimensions of practices which drive software innovation, with a brief summary of some of the key practices in each area (read the report to fully explore my advice on all these areas):

Some of the most interesting interviews were with “Web” companies like Netflix and bwin Interactive Entertainment AG:

"I believe it's necessary to listen to the voice of the customer, which begins at the customer-care department. A lot of small innovations come from your real customers. The customer support center collects ideas and channels them to the product managers." (Steve Swasey, vice president of corporate communications, Netflix)

"Customer feedback is essential to judge the success or failure of your innovations, which you can get immediately after rolling out new features in an eCommerce business like ours. Therefore, it's just as important to be able to rapidly roll unsuccessful experiments back as to be able to rapidly roll innovations out." (Christoph Haas, head of software development and delivery, bwin Interactive Entertainment AG)

But do you have to be a “Web” company for it to be important to listen to your customers? Of course not! It’s just that on the Web, there’s nowhere to hide – you live or die by your customers’ reaction to your innovations, and the value they deliver. The experts I interviewed came from a wide range of different organization types, also including financial services, software vendors, and system integrators.

I hope you enjoy the report, but more importantly, I hope it really helps you. Please respond to me in this blog, or by emailing me at mgilpin@forrester.com, if you’d like to continue the discussion – it’s a fun topic.

Sincerely,
Mike Gilpin

Jump On The iPad Before It Is Too Late: 3 Reasons To Develop An iPad App Now

Mike Gualtieri — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:53:36 -0500

Finally, Apple’s latest game-changing, must-have device is ripe - the iPad. The iPad is not a new idea. Tablet PCs were introduced years ago but failed to take off. More recently, the Amazon Kindle proved that a simpler form of the tablet has legs. But what Apple does brilliantly is that they do it better. They make gorgeous devices that are supremely useful, usable, and desirable at an emotional level to millions of people around the world.

Form, function and user experience notwithstanding, the availability of apps and content are what will make the iPad another Apple success. And, no one has been more successful in helping individuals and firms monetize apps and content than Apple’s iTunes. If you missed the iPhone app bandwagon, don’t fret. You can jump on the iPad bandwagon now.

Don’t Be A Johnny-Come-Lately

Enterprise IT is slow to develop applications for new technology – choosing a wait-and-see attitude instead. The result: Johnny-come-lately. The Apple iPad is your chance to be a resounding first-mover and beat your competitors to the punch. The benefits:

- Mojo by association. Be one of the first firms to develop an iPad application to help users shop for insurance, trade stocks, play colorforms with your fall fashion line, track calories or whatever application is relevant to your customers. The result: You’ll get a tremendous amount of free publicity because your firm will ride on the coattails of Apple’s iPad publicity.

- Create a culture of innovation/action. Innovation = ideas + action. Your colleagues have ideas, but may be hamstrung by overbearing decision-making processes. Your action to assign a team to develop an application for the iPad will be proof that your organization can move quickly when opportunities emerge from new technology.

- Attain and retain customers. The iPhone has zillions of applications, but how many are really used? You can’t build a trivial, irrelevant application. You have to develop an application that is relevant to your customers, has a compelling user experience, protects your brand, and achieves your business goals. Test your application with real users before making it widely available.

To create the application you’ll need a relevant business idea, the ability to design a relevant user experience, the technical skills to program the iPad SDK, and, potentially, integration to other applications. Why not download the iPad SDK and to develop a game-changing application right now? Is there any reason not to?

Mike Gualtieri

Peace, love, and the IBM System 360s

John Rymer — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:42:19 -0500

"Our vision for 2010 is the same as IBM's for the year 1960." So said Oracle's Larry Ellison from the stage at today's event to celebrate his company's acquisition of Sun Microsystems. With Sun in hand, Oracle will now take us back to the simple virtues of mainframes 50 years ago. Updated, these virtues are:

Simple deployment. Rather than integrate and configure a collection of software products on a server, customers install a purpose-built box with all the software installed, integrated, and configured.
Simple support. Rather than weave through the pointing fingers of multiple vendors, customers turn to just one to obtain support for their systems.
Simple reliability and performance. Because the vendor owns all of the elements in the hardware-software stack, it can "engineer-in" reliability and performance, as IBM did with the System 360.

As one Twitterer wrote today, isn't this what people want -- systems that just do what I want? Of course, but we must also recognize the evils of the mainframe sixties.

Monopolistic account control. IBM's predatory sales practices with its mainframes landed it in a US antitrust case that lasted 10 years. IBM prevailed, but there were no winners in that contest.
Plodding innovation. The explosion of hardware and software innovation that began in the mid-70s happened after IBM's mainframe monopoly era. Digital Equipment lead the charge in hardware. Cullinet, others in software. Ultimately, this innovation wave produced Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Sun, Google ... Why didn't IBM create these innovations much earlier? A monopoly defends its base first, tweaks its base second, and only then starts thinking about real change.
Slow solutions delivery. The mainframe era produced our jokes about IT high priests speaking arcana but holding all the keys. Mainframes were locked in special rooms to maintain their reliability and integrity, and only certain business tasks got priority. And your task usually was not a priority.

As Oracle, IBM and the other big vendors, and cloud providers like Salesforce move inevitably to integrated stacks, we can hope they will simplify today's complex systems. But we must also identify what we risk to obtain the promised benefits. The risks are particularly vital when considering Oracle, which has gained a reputation for abusing its customers as often as it helps them. At the Oracle-Sun event today, the conversation about the rewards and risks of integrated systems was necessarily high level, and ultimately won't do. Each customer will have to create his or her own equation when entering the brave new world of integrated systems:

[Specific] benefit = [specific] virtue - [specific] evil

We spoke today with one of Oracle's reference customers for the event who had done this math, and was ready to take the plunge for Oracle's Exadata platform (the first of its Oracle-Sun hardware-software systems). My reading: This customer balanced the benefits of Exadata (efficiency gains) with elements to reduce the risk of abuse by the vendor (careful crafting of expectations for Oracle and Sun, growing capacity requirements, and presence of other big vendors in his architecture).

And there's more. As Oracle executives repeatedly pointed out today, most customers don't buy hardware-software stacks from single vendors today. But the model is coming. My initial thoughts on what Larry's trip back to the sixties will mean for application development and delivery pros:

Think of integrated hardware-software stacks as potential delivery vehicles for standardized workloads. Ultimately, hardware-software stacks will take vendors like Oracle into "build to order" systems that can be dropped into branch offices, new plants, and so on. I suspect the simpler these systems are the better they'll work.
Define where you've got to have choice and openness. You may have relied on Java to give you freedom of choice before. It isn't clear how much choice Java will enable in single-vendor hardware-software stacks. How will vendors let partners into these stacks? Despite Oracle's protestations, I continue to doubt it can have both best stack integration and best of breed stack components.
Define where you've got to have common services. Each vendor stack will bring its own database, application server, security, identity management, management, and so on. Which of these services will be the foundation for your architecture?
Think about archipelagos an an architectural metaphor. If you've got IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and Salesforce as vendors, you've got four sets of islands and bridges to create an architecture with. Concepts like federation suddenly become very meaningful in this circumstance!

What do you think? Please join the conversation. If we put our heads together, we'll figure this out.

Oracle also discussed its plans for the various Sun products it acquired today. Based on today's announcements, our predictions of December 2009 (see http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/oracle_gets_more_specific_about_sun_plans/q/id/55936/t/2) are largely accurate, but there are three exceptions:

We expected Sun's Identity Manager to become Oracle's strategic product in that category. It is better than Oracle's equivalent product. However, Oracle is sticking with its Identity Manager as its strategic product in that category.
Oracle did not make a blanket commitment to support Sun's middleware products for a long period of time. The support commitments will be published on February 1, 2010 on oracle.com.
Oracle will take a run at establishing JavaFX as an alternative to Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. We predicted Oracle would kill JavaFX.

Progress Software Builds Its Position An Enterprise Platform Provider

John Rymer — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:49:28 -0500

With its acquisition of BPM-software leader Savvion, Progress Software has taken a step closer to providing a full line of enterprise middleware. Progress has operated as a supermarket of middleware brands addressing mostly specialized needs, but now is creating broader enterprise application platforms out of its separate middleware brands [Figure 1.].

First up: Progress Actional for service management, Apama for event management, and Savvion for business process solutions. Progress has not stepped up to such integration in the past. Progress has other product-suite possibilities as well with its middleware portfolio.

Expect Progress to start the Actional-Apama-Savvion integration with bundled pricing deals. Next, expect Progress to integrate runtimes and create a common set of tools for application developers and business process pros, and infrastructure and operations pros. Progress is making no promises about combining today’s separate runtimes, but is likely to keep simplifying integration between them.

Savvion fills a big hole in Progress’ product line for the low price of about $50 million. John Bates, CTO, says Progress is also counting on Savvion to help it sell to business buyers as well as to IT customers. Progress says the two companies have little overlap among their respective customers. Savvion has a strong, mature BPM suite, which Progress will continue to sell under the Savvion name.

Progress is a relative newcomer to enterprise direct sales, and so has a lot of work to realize these ambitions. The "big dog" in BPM software -- IBM -- is already there. The new combination of IBM’s powerful direct sales channel and Lombardi’s expertise in business-level selling will be Progress-Savvion's toughest competitor.

But Progress and Savvion also hope to create a new generation of process applications that combine today’s BPM methods and software with business-event management, sometimes known as complex event processing. Bates founded and ran Apama before taking Progress’ CTO job. He’s seen first-hand how some organizations feed events from CEP platform into process engines events to create sense-and-respond apps. Other customers use CEP to expand their process visibility beyond what a process engine can “see.” Brokers (of all descriptions), e-commerce, gaming and gambling, network operators, and analytics services firms are moving in this direction as they adopt event-driven architectures.

Progress will need additional software to satisfy the demand for event-driven architectures, most notably a distributed caching platform.

Progress’ acquisition of Savvion is the next step in the expected consolidation of the BPM software market. Forrester expects Microsoft and Oracle to be the largest acquirers of BPM software during the next year.

Figure 1: Progress Software’s Middleware Portfolio

Category	Progress Product
BPM Suite	Savvion
ESB	Sonic
SOA management	Actional
CORBA	Orbix
Data integration	DataDirect
Event processing	Apama
Business rules management	Savvion

Forrester Databyte: SCM Tool Adoption

Jeffrey Hammond — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:25:07 -0500

Last week Dr. Dobb's published an article I penned in December on "What Developers Think". I won't rehash the thrust of that piece here other than to reaffirm the growing trend of technology populism in development shops - where tech-savvy workers make their own decisions about what technologies to use. In essence, developers are increasingly helping themselves to the software, collaborative tools, and information sources that best fit their needs, with minimal or no support from central IT.

The format offered by a weekly circular like Dr. Dobb's limits the depth of content that one can present - you can only go so deep in 1500 words. After the article was published I noticed a bit of traffic on the Twittersphere about the a comment I made on the levels of Subversion usage we're seeing in development as an example of developer tech populism at work. Since we have no constraints on space here it's as good a place as any to publish the SCM adoption data behind the comments in last week's article.

SCM Adoption Shows Developer Tech Populism At Work

Software Configuration Management has a reputation of being a bit of a yawner in the development tools space. The technology is critical to development project success, but the tools and market have traditionally evolved at a sedate pace compared to other tool classes like IDEs and modeling tools. This suited development shops just fine though, because migrating from one SCM tool to another can be a real challenge, and you inevitably seem to end up leaving meta-data behind in the process. Selecting a single SCM tool as an organizational standard is essentially a 7-10 year decision (at a minimum). But right now we've arrived at an interesting inflection point in the market: Traditional market share leaders like IBM Rational ClearCase, Microsoft Visual Source Safe and Serena PVCS are being supplanted in product portfolios by next generation products like IBM Rational Team Concert, Microsoft Team Foundation Server, and Serena Dimensions.There is mounting pressure on many development shops to consider a near-term migration to a new SCM solution. Essentially, it seems as if the entire SCM user base is on the move - at the same time!

And then there's Subversion...

Subversion has grown in popularity for a number of reasons. Developers find it easy to acquire, relatively easy to install, and not overly painful to administer at the project level. Essentially it's "good enough" for a large number of developers who have already been forced to consider moving to a new SCM tool by their existing vendor. We first recognized Subversion's capability in our 2007 SCCM Wave, but since then it's shown continued momentum, driven into development shops at the grass roots level. As a result, one-third of the developers we surveyed for the Dr. Dobbs survey use Subversion as their primary SCM tool (see Figure 1). While Subversion's success is notable, it's not the only interesting bit of data in this graph:

Open Source SCM Solutions are closing in on 50% total market share. While Subversion is a clear share leader, it's not the only open source option. Where you add up Subversion, CVS, Git and Mercurial just under half of the developers in the survey are using open source SCM.

Custom-built SCM systems are a dying breed. While we still run into the odd shop that maintains a home-built SCM system (especially on the Mainframe) the trend is clearly toward using commercial SCM tools - less than 2% use a custom-developed solution. This is in contrast to change management, where more that 1 in 8 shops still use their own custom-built system.

Microsoft is making steady progress in turning over its SCM user base. With 45% of the developers in this survey indicating the Visual Studio is their primary IDE you'd expect to see Microsoft VSS and TFS well represented in the results. But what's also apparent is that Microsoft's transition of it's user base from Visual Source Safe to Team Foundation Server is well underway. By contrast, IBM's transition from ClearCase to IBM Rational Team Concert is still in it's early stages, with only 2 developers in the survey indicating that RTC is their primary SCM tool

Figure 1: Developer Adoption of SCM Tools

Expect to continue to see rapid change in the SCM and SCCM space in 2010 as new product introductions, commoditization, and end of support for popular SCM products all continue to roil the market. If you're interested in talking about your strategy and how you might move forward, drop us a line. And of course if you're already a Forrester client and would like to dig into this data in deeper detail, please don't hesitate to set up an inquiry - we'd be happy to discuss at length.

Jeffrey

About Dr. Dobbs Global Developer Technographics Survey, Q3, 2009:

Forrester's Dr. Dobbs Global Developer Technographics Survey, Q3, 2009, was fielded to 1298 application development professionals who are readers of Dr. Dobb's magazine. Forrester fielded the survey from August 2009. Survey respondent incentives included gift certificates and research summaries.

Forrester DataByte: Spending On Custom Software in 2010

Jeffrey Hammond — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:19:17 -0500

I fielded an inquiry from a client last week who asked what levels of investment Forrester is seeing in custom software development, and whether that investment remains significant compared to other activities in IT, especially given the downward pressure we've seen on budgets in 2009. The request was timely, as I've started to comb through the results of our annual Enterprise And SMB Software Survey. Forrester's own Andy Bartels already gave our clients some insight into 2010 IT spending patterns earlier this month, predicting that the global IT market will rise in 2010 by 8.1% in US dollars (or 5.6% in local currencies). So what can we expect when it comes to custom development spending?

On average IT shops will spend about 27% of their 2010 software budget on custom software development - e.g. software languages, application servers, application architecture or testing issues. This compares to an average of 35% spent on packaged application software, and 37% spent on platform and infrastructure software (See figure 1).

About 1 in 8 shops spends more that 50% of their software budgets on custom development. These shops tend to be highly concentrated in the financial services and insurance industry sector and they are likelier to be smaller business - in the 20-500 employee range.

Figure 1: Spending On Software In 2010

Industry Specific Processes Top This Year's Development Punch List

So what sorts of applications are developers spending their time on this year? It's no real surprise that applications which support industry specific business processes hold the top spot; by definition these processes define the unique intellectual property that gives businesses their competitive edge (See figure 2). It's also harder to buy packaged applications off the shelf to automate these unique practices. Shops are also building apps on information and knowledge management (IKM) platforms - a data point that my colleague John Rymer sees from a qualitative point of view every month in his large number of inquires on products like Microsoft Sharepoint.

It may seem a bit surprising that CRM is the third place category when it comes to custom development - after all CRM is a solved problem with packaged app options like SalesForce and Siebel - right? Well, not necessarily - as firms double down on keeping their existing customers and finding new ones they are investing in a larger concept of customer relationship management, including enhanced self service, improved user experiences, and customer-centric integration of the systems that run their businesses - that's pretty hard to buy out of the box.

Want More DataBytes? Your Wish Is Our Command...

In closing, I hope you find this concept of a "DataByte" useful. There's a lot of data our team has compiled over the past few years that doesn't always make it into our research reports. If you want to see more snippets of information like this in the future, drop us a line and let us know that you're interested. And of course if you're already a Forrester client and would like to dig into this data in deeper detail, please don't hesitate to set up an inquiry - we'd be happy to discuss at length.

Jeffrey

About Forrester's Enterprise And SMB Software Survey:

How You Can Come Out Smelling Like A Rose In 2010

Mike Gualtieri — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:18:47 -0500

Whew. Thankfully there are finally signs that the Great Recession is waning (knock on wood). The metrics used to judge the health of the economy such as unemployment are bad but not as bad. The stock market had a big bounce off lows, Avatar raked in a billion dollars, and Barbara Walters named Lady Gaga one of the 10 most fascinating people of 2009. This does not mean we are out of the woods yet. But, it does mean that we can start thinking and looking up in 2010.

What Are The Top Changes For Application Development In 2010?

My fellow analysts John R. Rymer and Jeffrey Hammond and I asked and answered this question in our latest research report published January 4, 2010 - The Top Five Changes For Application Development In 2010.

Here are the highlights:

Embrace cloud as an emerging platform. It is time to put your head in the clouds because developing applications for the cloud requires new thinking.
Find your inner startup. Lame bureaucracies stunt innovation and make everything take longer.
Favor flexibility and cost over platform loyalty. Your fleet should include Cadillac CTS, Honda Accord, Ford F-150, Harley Electra Glide, and rollerblades.
Become passionate about user experience. You can be perfect at business analysis, project management, architecture, coding, and testing but it is all for naught if the user hates the application you built.
Find and coach your talent. Name one professional sports coach that talks about their players as "resources".

Forrester Clients: Please read the full report to see "Forrester's Call To Action" for each on these changes.

Non-Forrester clients: Find more detail about the changes in the press coverage Of Forrester's Top Five Changes For Application Development. Here are a few of them:

_{Cloud Ready For App Development In 2010}

InformationWeek - Charles Babcock - ‎Jan 5, 2010‎

Cloud computing offers a potentially higher speed development platform. It's time to get started, say three Forrester Research analysts. ...

_{Forrester: 5 keys for application development in 2010}

CNET News - Dave Rosenberg - ‎Jan 4, 2010‎

Application development professionals need to become "lean and mean" to emerge from the current economic recession, according to Forrester ...

_{Top 5 App Dev Changes In 2010}

Dr. Dobb's Journal - Jonathan Erickson - ‎Jan 5, 2010‎

If it's true that change is good, then 2010 ought to be a banner year for software developers, at least according to a new report entitled The Top Five ...

_{Five changes for application development in 2010}

SDTimes.com - David Rubinstein - ‎Jan 5, 2010‎

Lean and mean, according to Forrester analysts Mike Gualtieri, John Rymer and Jeffrey Hammond, refers to cutting costs in the current ...

Apps Modernization - What are Your Top Priorities in 2010/11?

Phil Murphy — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:01:10 -0500

OK, so the holidays are over, you've either closed, or are in the process of closing out 2009 year-end processing. The 2010 decade has begun, and it promises momentous change before we see the end of it: Leading edge technologies will become commonplace; Still newer technologies will emerge; New business threats and opportunities will arise; And the impact of the Baby Boomer phenomenon will finally arrive. All of these events will bring unanticipated changes - ensuring that our lives are as active as the Chinese proverb wishes us - "May you live in interesting times."

Interesting as it may be to wax poetic about the coming decade, as applications professionals, we need to keep our eyes on the "here and now". One common theme I hear over and over is that applications professionals' feet hit the ground running in January 2010 and there are no signs of things slowing down any time soon. New projects and initiatives are the most visible chunks of activity, but what about everything else you are doing?

What are the top application modernization issues keeping you awake at night? Where can Forrester help you be more successful? What are the big chunks of work you have planned that will require help? Some "for instances" examples to spur your thinking include:

Workforce issues - Do you currently employ the best mix of application professionals? Do you need help attracting the best? Is your organizational structure holding you back? Do you fear the impact of Baby Boomer retirement on your "legacy" skills? Are new technology skills the issue? Or is it the challenge of bringing valuable employees forward to new technology skills? Are remote teams and global sourcing options more of your 2010 dilemma?
Modernization techniques - Knowing you want to modernize is one thing ... but modernization has literally dozens of choices and hundreds of permutations - what's the REAL problem? Maybe you know that some applications need work, but you aren't sure how to approach the decision-making process? Or is building a business case / justifying the action where you need help?
Migration - Do you need to migrate from one platform, database, language, or combination of the three, but aren't sure whether or how to do it? Do you need a services-firm to help you? Are you weighing doing the work internally?
Maintenance costs - Are high costs keeping you from doing real work? Are your costs excessive? Do you have the metrics to even know the answer? Are external benchmarks the answer, or a red-herring keeping you from your task?
Application rationalization - Has merger and acquisition activity littered your portfolio with redundant, obsolete, or marginally useful applications? Do you need help consolidating a slew of packaged applications into a single replacement ERP package? Are your custom-built applications the real culprit, or is it a mixture of both?
Portfolio management - Do you finally have the green light to look at application portfolio management, but aren't sure where to begin? Are you trying to build a case for it? Wonder whether it's right for you, and what level of depth to go to?
Other - Is there some other modernization topic not in this list or a different nuance on one named above?

This is your chance to sound off, socialize the issue with peers and influence research - talk to us - what are your top application modernization issues for 2010?

P. S. If you'd prefer not to post your priorities publicly, please feel free to send your thoughts directly to me at pmurphy@forrester.com