I was recently contracted to write a report to help a company determine what to do with their Smalltalk project. Here are a few facts I gathered and included in the report:

1. Last year was the best year yet for Cincom Smalltalk. Their revenues are growing and they have been consistently growing ever since they acquired VisualWorks. They are also seeing some new projects starting up in Smalltalk.
2. Last year was GemStone's best year in their last 26 years in business. They are landing big projects and are seeing lots of interest in Smalltalk.
3. Instantiations says "Last year the software industry grew at about an 8% rate while Instantiations grew at substantially more than that rate and our VA Smalltalk at an even better rate than that!"

This all points to the fact that Smalltalk is experiencing a resurgence. I see it as a reaction against complex software development environments and the realization that software development doesn't have to be that hard. Smalltalk has the simplicity, the tools support, the dynamic environment and the flexibility to solve a large number of today's software development problems. I'd say that the future is now looking good for Smalltalk.