COMMENTARY--It’s a well-known fact that Microsoft has dominated the market for easy-to-use development tools and nurtured a loyal development community. It’s also no secret that they’ve been fending off competition from a host of more open operating systems like Linux on the desktop and QNX for embedded devices.
Ironically, while Redmond has been busy stepping up its battle on the OS front, another industry-wide movement is posing the first genuine threat to Microsoft’s famous hold on developers. That movement is Eclipse.
This fall marks the second anniversary of Eclipse, the open-source tool integration platform that’s attracted hundreds of vendors and tens of million of developers. In fact, growth and adoption of Eclipse has been so rapid that companies such as Ericsson are evaluating it as a single, corporate-wide development platform to cut costs and boost efficiency.
Looking back, it’s obvious why Microsoft tools became the darlings of developers. A single interface can be used across the entire set of Windows platforms—Windows, XP, NT, embedded or CE—whether developing for a PDA or a desktop computer.
But there’s an emerging problem. Windows doesn’t offer much of an ecosystem because Microsoft controls the code, so there are fewer options for developers to pick best-of-breed tools such as code profilers, memory analysis tools, etc.
Microsoft’s developer strategy is actually turning into an Achilles heel and demonstrates that the company is increasingly out of touch with changes in the developer community. According to recent data from Evans Research, usage of the Eclipse IDE has more than doubled in the last year. Conversely, Microsoft’s dominant Visual Developer Studio has lost market share to every other IDE, according to the Evans study.
Integrating beyond the Microsoft platform has been unsuccessful. In the embedded market, for example, Microsoft tools do not address the needs of developers working in multiple operating systems—with each OS presenting its own set of development challenges. Despite sporadic efforts from vendors of real-time operating systems (such as LynuxWorks) to integrate their tools with Microsoft’s development environment, none have been able to gain any market traction. Visual Studio has remained primarily a Windows-oriented development tool with a limited set of integrated third-party tool vendors.
Another alternative for developers looking to avoid Microsoft lock-in has been to create their own stack of tools, which is not realistic for most companies.
Java, on the other hand, has enjoyed wide vendor support but no single interface. Developers looking to work beyond a single brand silo have found it time-consuming to integrate tools from different vendors.
With Eclipse, developers finally have a platform that crosses multiple vendors and devices, from cell phones to IBM mainframes. It creates a single virtual tool that’s platform-independent, regardless of which operating system, device or programming language a developer uses.
Now smaller tools vendors can expand into new market segments without making a huge investment. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel with one more IDE that the world doesn’t need. Tools become instantly relevant and useable for every conceivable type of development.
And active management by the corporate membership of Eclipse means the developer contributions can be harnessed and targeted. For instance, early code donations by QNX advanced the C/C++ development tools project—immediately widening the relevance of Eclipse to Unix and Linux developers.
Developer feedback reveals that Eclipse eliminates much of the headaches and expense involved in any development project. Developers can more easily switch between tools used in typical software development, from revision control system, design automation tools and code verification to code development and debugging tools. Since Eclipse-based tools can integrate seamlessly, it cuts back the hours of planning and programming once needed to keep code fresh, not to mention the back-and-forth formalities of endless NDAs and conference calls.
So it’s no surprise that the momentum in tool development has shifted to Eclipse, which is clearly on track to take over from Visual Studio as the leading tool platform in the industry. Eclipse is even broader than the Visual Studio platform and has a larger set of ecosystem providers. Developers now have a choice and the freedom to innovate in an open source world. They are no longer required to drive down the dead-end street of Visual Studio plug-ins that only work in a closed, proprietary environment.
Is Eclipse about to overshadow Microsoft’s brilliance? It is already eating away at Microsoft’s dominance among developers--and creating a new collaborative way to bring users, vendors, and creators together under an open, unified platform. Microsoft took its eye off the ball during the early days of Linux, and it’s been silent on Eclipse. It makes you wonder whether history is repeating itself.
biogrpahy
Dan Dodge is president and CEO of QNX Software Systems, and a steward of the Eclipse.org Consortium.
