Industry Insights

Companies Are Making Big Bets on Developer Ecosystems

By Ideas @ AppDirect / June 19, 2018

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced it was acquiring GitHub for $7.5 billion. At first glance, it may seem like an odd pairing—one of the world’s most successful revenue-generators (Microsoft) buying one of the world’s leading destinations for open-source software (GitHub). There’s no shortage of speculation on what the move means, but one thing is clear: In the digital economy, developers are more important than ever before.

“It’s no longer controversial: The tech universe rotates around developers,” writes Ethan Kurzweil, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “Over the last decade, they have ascended to become the most important force and decision-maker in stewarding technology adoption and, increasingly, business innovation.”

"It’s no longer controversial: The tech universe rotates around developers."

The vital question for businesses, then, is how to attract developers to your ecosystem? One of the most effective ways is to give developers a clear path to monetizing their products. In fact, 69 percent of developers say return on their investment is the most important factor when choosing a developer ecosystem.

Giving Developers a Path to ROI

Providing a clear path to monetization is critical to creating a thriving developer ecosystem. However, many businesses have legacy technology that was not built to accommodate the third-party transactions that enable ecosystem monetization.

To explore these issues in greater detail, you can download our latest white paper, "Creating a Path to Monetization: How Enterprise Software Companies Can Win Developers and Create Thriving Ecosystems."

Ideas @ AppDirect is a leading source for trends, statistics, best practices, and other information related to the digital economy.