IDC: Asia to lead in developers by 2005

A new report by market research firm IDC predicts that North America will lose its standing as the world's leading producer of professional software developers to the Asia/Pacific region by 2005.

"The IDC 2002 Worldwide Professional Developer Model" study surveyed the number of professional developers in 191 countries and six geographic areas. The study defined a professional developer as a "paid professional who uses application development tools to build applications." Developers also had to be employed to be counted in the study, according to a statement released by IDC.

With 1.7 million software developers, the Asia/Pacific region is currently the No. 2 producer of development talent, surpassing Western Europe's 1.6 million developers, but well behind North America's 2.6 million professional developers in 2001, according to the IDC study.

With strong growth in the number of professional developers projected over the next two years in countries such as China and India as compared with North America, however, the Asian/Pacific region is on course to take over the No. 1 spot, IDC said.

In addition to the Asia/Pacific region, Eastern Europe (including Russia), the Middle East, and Africa are also predicted to experience a rapid growth in the number of developers in the coming years, according to IDC.

IDC researchers did not rely on census or historical data in calculating the number of developers in each country. Instead, a statistical model was developed that derived the number of developers from several variables such as population forecasts, figures on software spending, and the level of higher education in the general population.

The number of software developers was predicted to grow the most rapidly in countries such as China where the number of college-educated adults and professional developers was low, relative to the overall population, IDC said.

In countries such as the U.S. and Canada, where the number of college-educated adults and professional developers is high relative to the total population, growth was predicted to be lower.

Not surprisingly, the sharp economic downturn in North America has also weakened the region's status as the No. 1 producer of software developers, resulting in massive layoffs of IT workers in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The number of developers in North America actually shrank by half a percent between 2000 and 2001. By comparison, the number of developers in the Asia/Pacific region grew by more than 6 percent during the same period, according to the study.

Overall, the study found that the number of professional developers worldwide is growing. The world's population of developers will reach 13.3 million by 2006, from just 7.8 million in 2001, according to IDC.