One of my collegues at 451 asked if I’d be interested in taking over his column at The Register. Of course I would, that’s only about my favorite news outlet ever. My first column is up now, all about what feels to me like the re-emergence of the developer market (tools and middleware), a theme I’ve been puttering about with at 451 for those who’ve been following along.
Here’s the last bit of the column:
Will the developers finally pay for the tools they use to make their write and run software? In the consumer space of $19bn exits, oddly enough, perhaps not: many of the old ways hold true – there is still DIY pride and 20-year-olds with nothing better to do than code all night. Outside of the Ramen-noodle-coated technology world, however, as more devices get IP addresses and need software accordingly, it’s not full-on bonkers to think that there will be more developers at “normal” companies. And that’s the meat-and-potatoes of any “infrastructure” play: the mainstream companies which would rather purchase tools and middleware than quickly polish off another cup of Ramen before firing up a bare-bones editor to type up yet another chunk of middleware from scratch.
I’ll be doing this monthly, so there’ll be something more up in April. If you still know how to spell RSS, here’s the feed for my pieces.