Being a software entrepreneur for over 10 years now, I have seen the development landscape change a lot. Ofcourse, the 10 years before that period have changed a lot as well, but we’re seeing a different change coming on. Where the previous era of software development focussed on getting to grips with the latest tools, frameworks and basically just keeping pace, the next decade will not only change development, but also developers.

My company Arlanet is in the Microsoft .NET business since the beginning of 2002. A major leap for software development - building on a framework instead of compiling on the lower layer - developers were finally getting some support in their building process. From then on, multiple versions of Visual Studio were developed and the 2010 version and .NET Framework 4.0 prove this way of developing software has stood the test of time. Until now.

With so much going on in the ‘social arena’, a good part of the developers now use an Apple. Heck, they’re using iPhones and iPods as well, but still love to develop on Microsoft. Mobile will become more and more integrated with business software that runs on Microsoft and more and more mobile is used on Apple. It will be interesting to see how these companies will integrate on each other, as Apple won’t take over the business software and Microsoft can’t get their mobile platform as dominant as their desktop variant.

Then there’s the developer’s community. Internet-minded techies go for the Mac, definitly. They try to keep their hands off the Microsoft crap (as they call it) and go for CSS, HTML5, jQuery or whatever is hot. They are hardcore developers as well, just not in the sense we know them - compiling code and reading the Daily WTF where poor pieces of code are being laughed about. However, these developers are both getting more and more depended upon each other.

The coming years will see expertises arise within the developers community that were subtasks before now. The internet - and developing for it - has become so damn complicated that professionals are needed at a much deeper level. Nerds will blend with former-creatives-turned-techies. No longer an application will belong to one developer, otherwise it won’t run on a certain version of Internet Explorer. The techie needs a developer to implement on his ideas. Software companies with new strategies and services will arise on the scene. Old ones get to become small IBM’s, converting on their own legacy.

And the entrepreneur? He will align his company, regardless of change, following innovation and his guts. My guts tell me to change now.