Application Future
Definition: Application roadmap and health of the software company or developer community to achieve success.
Measurable Evaluation Criteria: Relative strength of the application lifecycle, and the organization or community behind it.
Application Lifecycle - What is the application roadmap? Can the application continue to add innovative features without re-architecting it? If it needs to be re-architected, are there enough resources and interest to achieve the next leap in web standards?
Organizational Strength - While the other criteria cover current state and perhaps some trends, the overall direction and strength of the software development company or community should be a considerable factor when choosing a standard browser.
Corporate Health - Software companies can be measured by their financial standing, and stated commitment to a product line. Their performance can also be measured by timely product releases, and the quality of their support channels.
Open Source Health - For Open Source applications, health can be measured primariliy by its maturity. Areas of investigation include the amount of participants in the developer community, the ability of developers to organize effectively around the project, and clear leadership by the project "maintainer". Often, there is also a non-profit organization providing direction and resources. Clearly performance is best measured by the quality and timeliness of code releases, and the ability of the community to support both users and developers who would like to contribute. Some immature Open Source applications loose interest before they ever release solid, supportable code. It should be clearly noted that Open Source is not a panacea for great software applications, and each product needs to be evaluated on its own merits over time.
