jsync | Java Staffing Specialist

2007 Year in Review (and how our Crystal Ball predictions fared)

12/06/2007

by Dave Fecak
In December we all tend to look back on the past year to reflect on events and wax nostalgic. I’m no different.

You may remember our predictions for 2007 from January’s jsync News. Let’s see how we did. (Predictions below are paraphrased from the original article found here)

• “Ajax will continue to get tons of hype, not live up to it but will gain some momentum” – I’d say true. The hype hasn’t died down and we’ve heard a bit more requests, but not nearly what you might think based on the chatter.
• “JSF gets less hype and still doesn’t catch on with most shops” – Again, true at least around here. There were some reports earlier this year about the problems with JSF and the reason it wasn’t being adopted. This prediction doesn’t exactly make me Nostradamus though!
• “SOA/Web Services begin to catch up to expectations, build steam towards end of year” – I’d say this is true as well, as we’ve seen many more requests for these skill sets from our clients.
• “Interface21 and RedHat will be acquired” – Too much eggnog that day. BEA was almost acquired and Interface21 became SpringSource, but this prediction struck out.
• “NetBeans and Eclipse continue dominating IDE market, NetBeans gains on Eclipse, GlassFish gains some market share” – Lots of positive word on the street about NetBeans and the new release should help as well. Hard to tell if NetBeans or GlassFish are gaining market share unless you count downloads and/or mailing list traffic.
• “Demand for Java talent in Philly and nationally continues to grow, salaries increase and sign on bonuses make a comeback” – Demand this year definitely grew and salaries definitely increased overall (some companies more than others). We also did see quite a few sign on bonuses offered this year as well. The sign on bonus amounts are probably about the same percentage of salary as they were historically, but the frequency with which they were offered definitely increased substantially.

Overall, not too shabby but we’ll need to be a little bolder in our picks for next year. Like “Google will be acquired by…” – OK, maybe not that bold. Happy New Year!

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