Can Ruby, Rails Make Developers Shine in a Downturn? - What's Hot in a Chilly Economy (
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For his part, David Dennis, senior director of product marketing at
GroundWork Open Source, said it will be more critical than ever for IT departments
to show that costs related to "keeping the lights on," such as IT
monitoring, systems management and infrastructure, are kept as lean as
possible, thereby freeing up funds for IT-related activities more directly tied
to revenue or bottom-line growth.
Black Duck's Levin said nearly every CEO
he has spoken with over the last few weeks has come to these conclusions:
One, this economic and financial
distress will continue on for the next two years or longer; two, credit will
dry up; three, venture capital will become scarce for Series C and D, and … the
VC are going to let some firms go out of business; four, VC is available for
Series A and B investments with very efficient capital utilization models; and
five, hanging onto people will become a little easier but recruiting new
personnel will become very difficult.
Levin also said he believes that IT budgets in non-Wall Street and related
firms and non-credit-sensitive businesses will stay the same or decrease no
more than 5 to 10 percent. However, in Wall Street and related firms or credit-sensitive
businesses, "there will be significant cutback in the neighborhood of 25
to 35 percent, and possibly more over time," Levin said.
That analysis came from more than one source. Ronald Schmelzer, an analyst
with ZapThink, agreed with Levin, noting that IT spending in both financial
services and manufacturing will be down, but investment in government, energy
and telecommunications IT "is hot right now."
And, looking at the question of what is a particularly hot technology right
now, Bob Lozano, chief strategist and founder of agile and scalable application
software provider Appistry, said he believes cloud computing will be a great
equalizer.
"Everyone is to one degree or another playing on the same field, with
the same handicaps ... so the enterprise that can figure out how to outmaneuver
their foes will still win, just as they always do—and technology remains a
great tool for winning those battles," Lozano said.
He added that he believes flexibility is the single largest benefit of the
move to cloud computing. That includes "the flexibility to scale up or
down and flexibility to diversify, even the flexibility to grow in small
increments," he said. "This is true for both public and private
clouds. Flexibility is the perfect antidote to uncertainty, and I think will …
drive the adoption of cloud computing during these times."
However, Lozano warned that "everyone wants to avoid any sense of
lock-in, of unnecessary dependency on any one cloud provider." He
suggested that Appistry is the perfect antidote to lock-in. "By choosing
to cloud-enable applications with Appistry, an enterprise can ensure a consistent
level of flexibility, scale and reliability across all cloud deployment
options, both public and private," he said.
Still, despite the varied opinions of those who are or aren't involved in specialty,
dynamic language or fancy Web framework development, the financial crisis is
enough to scare the devil out of a lot of folks. Nobody has a crystal
ball—certainly not myself. I simply wanted to present some of the thoughts of
people I tend to run into on my beat because they give me something to think
about. I was hoping others out there might join in.
What are your thoughts about the plight of developers
in a down economy?
Application Development 
