China: Land Of Software Market Opportunity?

Compiled ByDeborah Austin The fast-growing, still-transitioning software market in the People's Republic of China offers tremendous vendor potential, suggests the Evans Data Corp. Chinese Developer survey of more than 700 software developers. "The dominant market share some products enjoy in North America will not necessarily translate to the Chinese market where developers are actively evaluating a wide range of technologies, languages and tools," says Esther Schindler, analyst for software development research firm Evans Data, Santa Cruz, Calif. Findings include:

The majority of Chinese developers still target Windows operating systems -- but more than two-thirds expect to write applications for Linux in the next year, versus 40% of North American developers.

Chinese developers' biggest problems in Web development: decreasing development/maintenance time (23%) and automation (19%). Personalization -- crucial in North America -- rated only 10% mention.

Of Chinese developers, 46.5% say their company has suffered a data security breach -- versus 20% in North America.

Average programming experience in China: four years -- versus 16-plus years in North America.