IBM Rational tops Microsoft Visual Studio in developer survey

In a worldwide survey of more than 1,200 developers last month, IBM’s Rational tools suite was rated highest in user satisfaction, followed by Microsoft’s Visual Studio and Zend Technologies Zend Studio.

The Evans Data annual User’s Choice Software Development Platform survey had Rational as tops in six categories, including application modeling, requirements management, technical support quality and support for remote development, frameworks, and multiple languages. Rational also had the best overall score in Evans’s ranking system. Visual Studio scored highest for database integration, visual and declarative support, and size and quality of the community. Zend, which specializes in PHP development, was tops for Web design and development tools and availability of third-party tools.

“Providing developers with a superior development environment and tools is an essential strategic element of technology adoption and directly correlates to the eventual success of platforms and vendors,” said Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans, in a statement released by the company. Developers were asked to identify any of the nine top development platforms they use, then rate 18 elements of those platforms.

Other products that showed up in the survey include Oracle’s JDeveloper, JBoss, Eclipse, Genuitec MyEclipse, Adobe Flash Builder, and Embarcadero’s Delphi. The survey, Evans said, was not vendor-sponsored. But several companies whose products were mentioned in the study, including IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle, are included on a partial list of Evans clients. Zend, however, is not a client.

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