As a web developer or web designer, you have to mindful of who your audience is when you are putting up a new web site or web application.

Back in the 1990’s when I started, you had to consider which web browser but you were pretty safe to assume that people would be visiting your website on a desktop computer and 95% of the time, it was Windows.

… Things have changed and will continue to change.

Check out what a well known hedge fund analyst is saying – Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners told CNBC:

The explosion of mobile platforms, particularly iOS and Android, means that Windows will account for less than 50% of all Internet-connected devices in 2011.

Now that doesn’t mean 50% of the people visiting your site will be using iOS or Android … at least not yet. But it does speak of a powerful trend that will not stop. That trend is toward smartphones, tablets and the death of the desktop. Since Windows on the smartphone and tablet is a non-starter, I think as a web application developers, we have to see Android and iOS as being the future.

What does that mean for PHP developers?

I think PHP programmers are going to have understand the new front end … the mobile device. As such, PHP’rs are really going to have to get into the client-side technologies because they have an impact how we write PHP code. I’m thinking:

- HTML 5
- CSS 3
- Javascript
- JSON
- Jquery

… You better understand how these technologies work with PHP if you want a job (or contracts) as a PHP programmer.

Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com