Two weeks back I derisively mentioned Microsoft's Live.com gadget creation contest (where they're trying to egg on development of gadgets for their web app by contest giveaways). Now Ebay is getting into the game - they've announced prizes for the best applications that hook into Ebay, extending the value of their services. So Ebay gets a more vibrant developer community, with more tools and services for their highly lucrative clients, and the developers get...a remote chance at winning some token prize.
As a professional software developer and enterpreneur, this serves as a huge omen, yelling out "There is no money to be made in this market". The normal carrot that draws developers into a niche is revenue, with which there is little need for additional incentives (e.g. Why would I care about your token game machine when I'm planning on selling 50,000 copies of my software at $49.95 each?). So when an organization becomes desperate enough to start doing giveaways, you know that niche is undergoing pretty unhealthy times.
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Dennis Forbes is a Toronto-based software architect. While focused primarily on the .NET and SQL Server worlds, Dennis frequently ventures outside of this comfort zone into game development and image processing. He has been published in several industry magazines, has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and has been interviewed by NPR.He is a vice president and lead software architect at an innovative New York City hedge fund back-office services firm.
Dennis has been working on solutions for the financial, telecommunications, and power generation markets for over 15 years.