{"id":2212,"date":"2012-08-20T21:00:01","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T20:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/?p=2212"},"modified":"2012-08-20T21:00:01","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T20:00:01","slug":"results-windows-8-devices-app-development-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/?p=2212","title":{"rendered":"Results: Windows 8 devices &#038; app development survey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this month, I ran a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/?p=2192\">Windows 8 &#8211; devices &amp; app development<\/a> survey.  <\/p>\n<p>I asked four simple questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do you intend to purchase a Windows 8 device?<\/li>\n<li>Are you planning to develop your own &#8220;apps&#8221; for Windows 8?<\/li>\n<li>Is your employer planning to develop &#8216;tablet&#8217; apps for Windows 8?<\/li>\n<li>Thinking about &#8216;tablet&#8217; devices &#8211; what is important to you?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>During the first two weeks of August, the survey was tweeted and re-tweeted.  As such, it attracted enough attention to provide some very interesting results.  200 people responded within the first week of August; another 80 during the second week.  I&#8217;m now in a position to share the results&#8230;having spent a &#8220;little bit&#8221; of time working out how best to display the data!  Turns out Microsoft Excel was the answer all along!<\/p>\n<p>Thanks are due to <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/mbrit\">Matt Baxter-Reynolds<\/a> for his input and contribution towards the design of this survey.<\/p>\n<p><strong>QUESTION 1 &#8211; Do you intend to purchase a Windows 8 device? <\/strong><br \/>\nThe answers on offer were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Yes, I plan to purchase a device as soon as it&#8217;s available<\/li>\n<li>Yes, I plan to purchase a device next year<\/li>\n<li>Yes, I plan to purchase a &#8220;Windows RT&#8221; device this year and a &#8220;Windows Pro&#8221; device next year<\/li>\n<li>Perhaps<\/li>\n<li>No, I have no plans to purchase a device this year or next<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Between now and next year, 61% of respondents are planning to purchase a device capable of running Windows 8.  <\/p>\n<p>36% plan to purchase a Windows 8 capable device as soon as it&#8217;s available.  From what information is available at the time of writing, this device will be running Windows RT; it may or may not be a Microsoft piece of hardware though.  Personally, I see the Windows RT device as something that I can have on the arm of a sofa.  It&#8217;s not a device I plan to spend a lot of time &#8220;working&#8221; at, but a device that I will use for short periods of time on a regular basis.  It may well be the device that we use when travelling, something to keep us connected in hotels, etc.  It&#8217;s unlikely that a keyboard will play a major part in its use, although it may well be used if it&#8217;s part of the cover. <\/p>\n<p>20% plan to wait until next year before buying into Windows 8.  Like most things, some folks prefer to wait until a device \/ platform has been established before making their investment.  <\/p>\n<p>5%, myself included, plan to purchase a Windows RT device and a Windows Pro device.  I am hoping the Windows RT device will be the device that is kept in the lounge, on the arm of the aforementioned sofa.  The Windows Pro device I hope to be able to use in place of a laptop.  I would like to be able to use it at conferences, as organiser, as attendee and as a speaker.  By that virtue, I would like it to have sufficient performance to be able to run Visual Studio and the like, i.e. it should be able to &#8220;achieve&#8221; where many netbooks have tried and failed. <\/p>\n<p>17% are considering their options when they responded with &#8220;Perhaps.&#8221;  This is fine.  Whilst Microsoft would love it if we all rushed out to by their devices running Windows 8, it&#8217;s understandable that many folks will want to wait and see how the devices and the operating system turn out.  <\/p>\n<p>22% do not intend to purchase a Windows 8 capable device.  <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Q1s.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>QUESTION 2 &#8211; Are you planning to develop your own &#8220;apps&#8221; for Windows 8?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong>The answers on offer were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Yes, I   am already developing software for Windows 8<\/li>\n<li>Yes, I   plan to start developing software for Windows 8 this year<\/li>\n<li>Yes, I   plan to start developing software for Windows 8 next year<\/li>\n<li>Perhaps<\/li>\n<li>No, I   have no plans to develop software for Windows 8<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>63% of respondents are either developing software for Windows 8 or have plans to do so between now and next year.  Do remember that it is possible to develop Windows 8 software without actually owning a device.  Whilst it is possible, developing Windows 8 applications on a tablet-like device itself is probably an extreme, most respondents will use meatier development machines.<\/p>\n<p>25% are already developing software.  I would imagine that this pot included a number of Windows Phone developers who are busy porting their &#8220;apps&#8221; over to Windows 8.  The programming model is very similar; so much so, one might consider the Windows Phone model a subset of the Windows 8 model.  However, I would also expect this 25% includes those developers who have downloaded Visual Studio 2012 (in it&#8217;s pre-RTM releases).<\/p>\n<p>31% are planning to start developing software during the course of this year.<\/p>\n<p>7% are planning to develop software, but not until next year.<\/p>\n<p>15% are sitting on the fence and might develop Windows 8 software.<\/p>\n<p>22% are fairly clear and have no plans at all.  In many ways, there is no obligation to own a device in order to develop apps for it.  This has been proven in the Windows Phone space; students at the University of Hull have published apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace that were developed using the Windows Phone emulator attached to Visual Studio 2010.  I expect that some of the 22% of respondents have gone on to answer the remaining questions with that in mind.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Q2s.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>QUESTION 3 &#8211; Is your employer planning to develop &#8216;tablet&#8217; apps for Windows 8?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The answers on offer were:<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Yes, definite plans for off-the-shelf products<\/li>\n<li>Yes, definite plans for internal use<\/li>\n<li>Yes, definite plans for off-the-shelf products and internal use<\/li>\n<li>We are   planning to run a pilot\/investigate further<\/li>\n<li>Perhaps<\/li>\n<li>No plans to develop Windows 8 apps<\/li>\n<li>I don&#8217;t have an employer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>21% of respondents are planning to develop &#8216;tablet&#8217; software for their employers, whether it is for off-the-shelf or internal use only products.  12% are looking to develop off-the-shelf products, 3% are building for internal use only and 6% are targeting both.  Internal use only development seems rather low, 3% equates to 8 respondents.  <\/p>\n<p>18% plan to run a pilot study.  In the corporate world, this is a fairly normal thing to do.  It is likely that some of the percentage points will convert themselves in to &#8220;Yes&#8221; responses as the pilot projects prove themselves.  Equally, some will become &#8220;No&#8221; or may be put on the back-burner to &#8220;Perhaps&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>21% are sitting on the fence and might consider developing &#8216;tablet&#8217; software if their employer asked.  This is a demand driven approach &#8211; if clients ask for tablet-based software, many firms will weigh up the pros and cons of such a development venture.  Given that Windows 8 devices have the ability to run applications that are built using Visual Studio, firms with a bedrock of Visual Studio development expertise may well find a new market has opened up for them.  And it is a low-risk market at that &#8211; if the developers know the tools, there&#8217;s no cross-training to Objective-C (Apple devices) or Java (Android devices).<\/p>\n<p>33% of &#8220;corporate&#8221; respondents have no plans to develop &#8216;tablet&#8217; software.  This ties in with Questions 1 and 2, where we saw 22% of respondents answer &#8220;No&#8221;.  It stands to reason that some respondents may not have employer or may not be looking to develop software for their employer.  <\/p>\n<p>7% of respondents did not have an employer.  This answer was included largely to provide an &#8220;out&#8221; for this question.  I did not want the &#8220;No&#8221; vote skewed when folks reached this question, I would rather have the 7% broken out than have it bundled in with the 33% of &#8220;No&#8221; responses.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Q3s.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>QUESTION 4 &#8211; Thinking about &#8216;tablet&#8217; devices &#8211; what is important to you?<\/strong><br \/>\nQuestion four was a &#8220;tick all that apply&#8221; style of question.  It was added to gather sentiment towards slates \/ tablets.<\/p>\n<p>The results are not very surprising: a device that is quick to power on, doesn&#8217;t cost the Earth and can run for a long time would be an excellent design goal.  Having plenty of &#8220;apps&#8221; available is also a good design goal &#8211; it appears that people want to be able to use their devices &#8220;right out of the box&#8221;; we can perhaps infer that also means &#8220;right out of the box <em>at launch<\/em>&#8220;.  This is not a bad thing: Microsoft are being very proactive and are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/msdn\/windows8\/publisher-programme.html\">rallying the developer community<\/a> such that they might develop Windows 8 apps before the launch date in October.  And that&#8217;s not all: there is a steady stream of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.devcamps.ms\/\">DevCamps<\/a> covering <a href=\"http:\/\/www.devcamps.ms\/windows\">Windows 8<\/a> development, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.devcamps.ms\/windowsazure\">Azure<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.devcamps.ms\/windowsphone\">Windows Phone<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.devcamps.ms\/web\">Web<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>High up the list, at 45.1%, &#8220;Availability of free software development tools&#8221;.  In keeping with earlier releases, Microsoft has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/11\/en-us\/downloads#express-win8\">Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows 8<\/a>.  With the exception of any membership fees that developers must pay in order to submit apps to the <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/b\/windowsstore\/archive\/2012\/08\/01\/rtm-windows-store-is-now-open-for-paid-apps-company-accounts.aspx\">Windows Store<\/a>, Visual Studio Express won&#8217;t cost you a penny.  If you have an MSDN licence, the membership <a href=\"http:\/\/www.windowsphonegeek.com\/news\/Free-Windows-Store-and-Windows-Phone-developer-accounts-with-MSDN-subscription\">fees are waived<\/a> for the first year.<\/p>\n<p>Lower down the percentage points, we see a reasonable drop from 28.5% down to 13.4%. \u00a0Screen size, Flash support, packaging and colour appear to be the less popular options. \u00a0The problems of the <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2012\/07\/16\/nexus-7-unboxing\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nexus 7 packaging<\/a> did not seem to ruffle any feathers in this poll, only 6.5% of respondents were keen on easy access packaging!  Looking at everything from 28.5% upwards, the specification for current <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/surface\/en\/us\/about.aspx\">Microsoft hardware devices<\/a> hit all of these percentage points.  I am sure we can expect to see many third party hardware manufacturers using these percentage points as differentiators in what promises to be a heated lead up to Christmas 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Only 9.7% of respondents expressed the need for Flash support.  With HTML 5 becoming ever more prevalent, many web-sites are moving away from using Flash.  Plus, it would appear to be the subject of a rather <a href=\"http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/s\/article\/9227067\/Adobe_s_security_chief_praises_Apple_for_Flash_crippling_move\">emotive debate<\/a> that involves some rather choice language!<\/p>\n<p>Colour choice does not seem to be a deciding factor in <em>this<\/em> survey, 5.1% equates to 14 respondents.  Elsewhere, colour is number 9 (out of 10) on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/debshinder\">Debra&#8217;s<\/a> list of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techrepublic.com\/blog\/10things\/10-reasons-i-cant-wait-to-get-a-microsoft-surface-tablet\/3386?timestamp=1345474055\">10 reasons I can&#8217;t wait to get a Microsoft Surface tablet<\/a>!  Colour choice is probably useful if you have more than one similar looking device at your disposal.  It also provides choice to the fraternity of folks who complain &#8220;I don&#8217;t like black&#8221;.  That said, my wife loves her Nokia Lumia, despite the fact it&#8217;s not the right shade of pink for her (it&#8217;s magenta wasn&#8217;t the correct answer it seems!)<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Q4s.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I am happy to update this post with your thoughts, please note them in the comments below.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Next Steps<\/strong><br \/>\nIf you are thinking about developing software or apps for Windows 8, find your nearest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.devcamps.ms\/\">DevCamp<\/a>!  They are a great place to meet like-minded developers and your local Microsoft Developer Platform Evangelists (DPEs)!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.devcamps.ms\/windows\">Windows 8 development<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.devcamps.ms\/windowsazure\">Azure<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.devcamps.ms\/windowsphone\">Windows Phone<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.devcamps.ms\/web\">Web<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/msdn.microsoft.com\/en-gb\/ff978915\">UK DPEs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this month, I ran a Windows 8 &#8211; devices &amp; app development survey. I asked four simple questions: Do you intend to purchase a Windows 8 device? Are you planning to develop your own &#8220;apps&#8221; for Windows 8? Is your employer planning to develop &#8216;tablet&#8217; apps for Windows 8? Thinking about &#8216;tablet&#8217; devices &#8211; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/?p=2212\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Results: Windows 8 devices &#038; app development survey<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[625],"tags":[614,654,651,436,672,559,648,719,718,671,630],"class_list":["post-2212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-windows-8","tag-app","tag-devcamp","tag-development-2","tag-microsoft","tag-msdn","tag-survey","tag-windows","tag-windows-8","tag-windows-phone","tag-windows-pro","tag-windows-rt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2212"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2239,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212\/revisions\/2239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}