January 14, 2010 Newsletter

Greetings!

Now that the new year is well under way, I wanted to take a moment and look at the job situation for developers. In general, developers overall fared pretty well during the recession; hopefully the same is true for each and every one of you. Indeed, according to a report from a nonprofit business organization called The Conference Board, December saw an increase in the ratio of job openings to job seekers in the computer fields. That's good news for all of us, and this week we have a full news article on the report.

Meanwhile, back to actual developer technology, we have lots of goodies for you this week. AT&T just had its Developer Summit, and eWEEK's Darryl Taft has lots to report on what's happening with AT&T and their support for developers. Since AT&T is a mobile phone carrier, it's no surprise that the development programs focus on mobile development. The support includes programs for creating location-aware software, and much more. Check out the article to get Darryl's full update.

In other news, have you explored SVG lately? That's a technology that's been around for a few years, but sort of went by the wayside. I myself have worked extensively with it in the past, and was sad to see it dwindling. Well, it never actually went away, but support for it has decreased--until now. Microsoft has joined the SVG working group, and other companies are moving forward with it. Will it start to pick up steam again? We've got an update; see what you think.

Enjoy!
Jeff

ATT Reaches Out to Developers
http://www.devsource.com/c/a/Architecture/ATT-Reaches-Out-to-Developers/
At its AT&T Developer Summit, AT&T announced a slew of initiatives aimed at increasing its penetration in the mobile phone space, including supporting multiple application stores. Meanwhile, AT&T's new partnership with WaveMarket is aimed at helping developers build location-aware applications for all major operating systems.

What's Behind Microsoft's SVG Standards Move?
http://www.devsource.com/c/a/Architecture/Whats-Behind-Microsofts-SVG-Standards-Move/
Microsoft plans to join the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group to help push the SVG specification forward, a move welcomed by many in the community and questioned by others.

Online Job Openings Rise for Technology in December
http://www.devsource.com/c/a/Architecture/Online-Job-Openings-Rise-for-Technology-in-December/
The second half of 2009 saw growth in online job vacancies. Health care and technology jobs led the pack in job opportunities, but the opportunity numbers for 2009 are still down significantly from 2008 and 2007.

Microsoft Previews Tool to Ease Migration from MySQL to SQL Server
http://www.devsource.com/c/a/Architecture/Microsoft-Previews-Tool-to-Ease-Migration-from-MySQL-to-SQL-Server/
Microsoft has released a new preview version of a tool that enables users of the MySQL database to migrate to Microsoft's SQL Server.

Developers Will Focus on Hybrid Cloud in 2010, Survey Says
http://www.devsource.com/c/a/Architecture/Developers-Will-Focus-on-Hybrid-Cloud-in-2010-Survey-Says/
More than 60 percent of IT shops polled plan to adopt a hybrid cloud model over the coming year, according to survey of application developers by Evans Data.