Wireless application development investments to expand

SANTA CRUZ, California, United States—Software developers plan to expand investments in wireless application development, despite uncertainties in today’s economy and future technologies, according to a recent Evans Data study.
“Even though the public has adopted wireless data devices more slowly than expected, the wireless Internet continues to grow,” said Jay Dixit, an Evans Data wireless analyst. “As new technologies are adopted and tools for wireless development become better, developers invest more and more time working on wireless applications.”
In fact, 20 percent of developers surveyed by Evans Data said they plan to devote most of their time to wireless development during the next 18 months. In addition, interest in new wireless technologies appears to be gaining momentum. For example, more than two-thirds of those surveyed use or are planning to use Bluetooth and a significant number of developers reported interest in the 802.11b wireless local area network standard.
The “Summer 2001 Wireless Developer Survey” also found that e-mail remains the most prevalent wireless application, targeted by 50 percent of developers, followed by instant messaging, consumer e-commerce and location-based services. Evans also reported that 57 percent of developers are working on applications for PDAs, approximately the same number are targeting mobile phones and 37.8 percent are focusing on wireless notebook computers.