Developers have yet to form long-term loyalty toward languages and tools in the wireless sector. Fifty-six percent indicate they would consider changing programming languages or tools to mobilize applications more easily. This is presumably because 78 percent of wireless developers are writing new applications from the ground up as opposed to 58 percent who are extending legacy applications. See the survey at Evans Data Corp. (EDC) — www.evansdata.com/cgi/relocate.php?key=wls2005_1_2.

The most likely wireless applications to be created are in the commercial end-user space with four in ten applications falling into this category. While most of the types of wireless applications being developed have not changed significantly in the last year, consumer oriented applications (applications for the general population, not just for use within a company) have seen an almost 90 percent increase in development.

“While the wireless technology landscape has matured in so many ways, it is evident from this survey that wireless in general still represents a nascent market with significant opportunities. This survey indicates a clear opening for ‘best of breed’ mobility solutions to gain market share,” said Albion Butters, a senior analyst with EDC.

Other findings from the April 2005 survey of nearly 500 wireless developers:

• Three quarters of wireless developers build solutions that are extensions of mission-critical applications and a quarter of those are extending more than half their mission-critical applications to mobile devices.

• The most prevalent means of connecting back-end applications to wireless applications are by the use of XML/SOAP/XML-RPC with almost a quarter of wireless developers preferring it to ADO.NET or messaging.

• Voice XML usage by wireless developers has doubled in the last six months to 23 percent and the usage of Flash is up by more than 60 percent in the last six months to 38 percent of wireless developers using the mark up language.

• More than 10 percent of wireless developers are currently working with RFID today and another quarter are evaluating the technology for future use.