Users of IBM's Rational tool suite are more satisfied with its features and capabilities than users of any other major software development platform according to the just released Evans Data annual User's Choice Software Development Platform survey, a competitive user satisfaction survey of over 1200 developers conducted in April. Rational was rated as the best in several categories, including application modeling, parallel programming or high performance computing, support for multiple servers and remote development. It also generated the best overall score and topped eight other major competitors.

Microsoft's Visual Studio was second with strengths in visual tools and declarative support and quality / size of the development community while Adobe Flashbuilder was third.

The survey, conducted worldwide, is unique in that all scores are generated only by users of the products. Developers identify any of the nine top development platforms that they use and then rate eighteen elements of those specific platforms. A formula is then applied to discover relative rankings across competitors. Products need a minimum number of developers rating them to be included in the report. In addition to those above, other products that made the cut were NetWeaver, JDeveloper, Eclipse, JBoss, MyEclipse, and Delphi.

"IBM has shown significant insight into what developers want and need along with an impressive ability to execute and bring new features and capabilities into the already world-class Rational tool suite," said Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data Corp. "That is what keeps them on top in the minds of the developers who actually use the Rational tool suite."

The User's Choice series is conducted several times a year and provides competitive user satisfaction scores on technologies such as application servers, software configuration management tools, databases, and developer programs.