We’ve been doing some analysis work for a ‘leading financial player’ (the contract prohibits specifically identifying them) and part of the task was to enquire after the thoughts and perspectives of mobile developers. I obviously can’t publish the entire report but I’m pleased to be able to begin presenting the results of the survey here on the site.
It’s been absolutely fascinating to watch the results come in. I’m particularly pleased to see that my viewpoints are bang-on the money!
Today I’m publishing the answers to the Vodafone question I posed. Standby for viewpoints on Maemo, Android, Symbian and — rather interestingly — Apple.
Here’s the question I asked:
Vodafone’s 360 developments are …
I then asked the participant to complete the sentence with these two options:
– Laudable — very smart indeed
– Sub-standard and in need of much work
The results are thus:
Just over 20% think Big Red’s 360 JIL platform is ‘laudable’ and ‘very smart indeed’, whilst the rest — just under 80% reckon that the platform is sub-standard and in need of much work.
Well then.
This is good news — as the only way is up.
The survey is, after all, just a measurement of how developers feel. But feeling — sentiment — will have a direct effect on the success of 360. One of the other questions I asked in the survey was regarding what other platforms developers intend working on. I’ll reveal the specifics in this week’s newsletter — suffice to say 360 isn’t anywhere on most developer radars. Plenty of time for that to change though. I do think Vodafone’s 360 team need to be a lot more aggressive in their outreach. For instance, I’ve asked twice for some stats that would garner attention from potentially interested developers — you know, downloads, anything that indicates that the raft of Samsung H1 and M1 devices already in the hands of consumers are being readily used, indicating that developers should invest their time and energy getting stuck in.
One Voda chap — speaking on condition of anonymity — explained to me that it’s simply ridiculous for me to assume that Vodafone would move this fast in terms of publishing any kind of indicative results. I suppose the platform’s only been ‘public’ for a few weeks. What concerns me is that many developers I talk to are already allocating funds and resources for their chosen platforms for next year — and Voda doesn’t figure on many radars at the moment.
Growing pains. It won’t take them long to get up to speed I’m sure.
Anyway right now I reckon the MIR audience’s mobile developers have delivered a result that is pretty indicative of overall developer sentiment.
What do you think? Are you in the 20% or the 80% block?
Standby for tomorrow’s question and result.
Ah statistics…
Ewan: what percentage of mobile developers chose not to answer this particular question? Perhaps feeling that they fell into neither category?
Any chance of publishing the sample size of the survey? Percentages are fine but lets put it into perspective. I'd like to see this survey next year as decent statistics are really gathered over time and the change in attitudes will be interesting. Will you be including any views on Blackberry?
I thought a bigger % would have gone for ‘It’s OK but needs a lot of work’
I thought the answer options to this question were too limited and I was therefore forced to make a choice I didn’t really 100% agree with. I haven’t played with a 360 device and so I was making my decision based on my low opinion of the network operators in general rather than the actual service which is slightly unfair.
According to Ewan on twitter, 500 developers responded to the survey.
Yeah sorry I thought I'd added that.
I wanted to force you into a binary decision category Jason — I wanted to measure sentiment — I didn't set out to create a complete in-depth study. I also wanted to make the choices a little entertaining.
Sorry Sheepdog — I thought I'd published that. The sample size is 500 developers. I'm hoping to run the survey every few months, maybe every quarter, to check on sentiment. BlackBerry will feature in results this week — alas I negated to specifically ask a question about them though.
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