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They did this later on. In 2011, Android Market (Google play) cost $25 for a lifetime developer account. You could develop apps on Windows, Mac or Linux. It

by Ologn 9y ago

They did this later on. In 2011, Android Market (Google play) cost $25 for a lifetime developer account. You could develop apps on Windows, Mac or Linux. It came with an emulator. So for the cost of $25, anyone on any major developer platform could write an app. In 2011, you could only program Windows Phone app on Windows (I don't even have a Windows machine where I live). Windows Phone Marketplace charged $99 a year for a developer account. You can say Apple did this to, or that it should be nothing, but apparently it was not a winning strategy. I know a college student who shelled out the $25 back then and published an app on Google Play, now he works as an Android developer for a Fortune 500 company. Perhaps the idea paying four times that, and on a yearly basis no less, to Microsoft, was off-putting. People can straighten their tie and say any business going off on such a venture can afford $100 a year as a gatekeeper, but it didn't work out so well for Microsoft. Apple was already in the pole position so they could get away with it. But you're right, after throwing up these barriers to developer entry at first, they started raining cash on developers to make apps, providing developer shops to code it and so on.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
They were priming the app pump at the same time they were charging $100 for dev accounts, it wasn't something that came later.
scarface74 9y ago
I doubt that many developers saw having a Windows machine as an impediment to building apps. Microsoft does still have 90% market share in PCs.
- jhasse 9y ago
  What's the marketshare on developer machines though? And build servers? What about Docker? It's so nice to be able to have any CI build your Android apps and Travis CI supports building iOS apps, too.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    As I said in another post, you can get a hosted build server from Visualstudio.com (VSTS) with unlimited Git repos, with 5 users and a hosted build server with 240 minutes per month. You can get a hosted build server with unlimited minutes for $40 a month. If you need more than one simultaneous build - buy more build agents. VSTS has hosted build servers for Windows, IOS, Linux, and Android. It's even nicer not to have to maintain servers at all. I try to avoid maintaining servers. We are moving to serverless functions with Lambda and serverless Docker with AWS Fargate.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Pretty much the same regarding developer machines. Besides my stay at research institutes, I never worked on companies where IT allowed anything other than Windows as development machines. Linux when required is only VM based or servers accessed via ssh. Macs are only allowed on macOS/iOS related projects. Docker remains a buzzword for the majority of customers, another box to tick besides big data and ML on slideware.
    - scarface74 9y ago
      I wouldn't go that far. I often see cited that 60%+ Of commits on Github come from Macs.
      - pjmlp 9y ago
        Github is a very lousy metric to measure anything relevant to typical enterprise development.
        scarface74 9y ago
        Even modern "Enterprise Development" is mostly web based. Few companies these days are developing WinForm apps.
        pjmlp 9y ago
- Rjevski 9y ago
  Remember that you needed Windows 8 or later to run the SDK. I doubt many professionals who use their computer to get work done would trade Windows 7 for that garbage.
  - yread 9y ago
    thats only true for windows 10 i think. I've made apps for wp7 and wp8 on w7
    - Rjevski 9y ago
      Even with the "Blend" UI designer (or whatever it was called)? I tried to get into Windows Phone 8 development back in 2014 but couldn't as every SDK seemed to require Windows 8.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  MSFT pitched our team on paying us to make Windows mobile apps and since we only did iOS/Android/web on Mac it would have required us buying new Windows systems for most of the team. My recollection from doing Windows development in 2000's was having to pay thousands of dollars per year for the MSDN/VC++. This is in addition to looking at the Windows phone market realistically and thinking - these apps for hire for Microsoft are going to be the only apps we would ever make for Windows mobile. We would definitely have done it if we had Windows developer systems ready to go.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    You don't have to pay anything to develop on Windows. Visual Studio Community Edition is free. Even if you want the professional edition - I don't see any reason you would - it's $499 per seat. You also wouldn't have to buy Windows computers - you could either buy Windows + Parallels or spend about $60 a month and get a hosted Windows desktop on AWS. You can get a hosted build server via Visual Studio Online - unlimited private git repos, 5 users free (each additional user $5). 240 build minutes free per month or $40 per hosted build agent with unlimited minutes. If you really have no need for Windows machines, just use AWS Workspaces and you can get a 4 vcpu 16GB Hosted Windows workstation for $70 a month.
    - tinus_hn 9y ago
      Was it this way when Windows Phone was starting? I think the free Visual Studio came much later.
      - scarface74 9y ago
        Yes. You could use Visual Studio Express. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2012/10/30/introducing-windows-phone-sdk-8-0/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2012/10/30/int...
    - sorenjan 9y ago
      You're not allowed to use Visual Studio Community Edition to develop commercial programs. > An unlimited number of users within an organization can use Visual Studio Community for the following scenarios: in a classroom learning environment, for academic research, or for contributing to open source projects. For all other usage scenarios: In non-enterprise organizations, up to five users can use Visual Studio Community. In enterprise organizations (meaning those with >250 PCs or >$1 Million US Dollars in annual revenue), no use is permitted beyond the open source, academic research, and classroom learning environment scenarios described above. https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/ https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  Apple requires a Mac for iOS development so my guess would be that most app developers use a Mac.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    And if MS was that desperate, I'm sure they would have been willing to throw in a few Windows licenses to allow the companies to either use Boot Camp or a VM.

by Ologn 9y ago

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

They were priming the app pump at the same time they were charging $100 for dev accounts, it wasn't something that came later.

scarface74 9y ago

I doubt that many developers saw having a Windows machine as an impediment to building apps. Microsoft does still have 90% market share in PCs.

jhasse 9y ago
What's the marketshare on developer machines though? And build servers? What about Docker? It's so nice to be able to have any CI build your Android apps and Travis CI supports building iOS apps, too.
- scarface74 9y ago
  As I said in another post, you can get a hosted build server from Visualstudio.com (VSTS) with unlimited Git repos, with 5 users and a hosted build server with 240 minutes per month. You can get a hosted build server with unlimited minutes for $40 a month. If you need more than one simultaneous build - buy more build agents. VSTS has hosted build servers for Windows, IOS, Linux, and Android. It's even nicer not to have to maintain servers at all. I try to avoid maintaining servers. We are moving to serverless functions with Lambda and serverless Docker with AWS Fargate.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Pretty much the same regarding developer machines. Besides my stay at research institutes, I never worked on companies where IT allowed anything other than Windows as development machines. Linux when required is only VM based or servers accessed via ssh. Macs are only allowed on macOS/iOS related projects. Docker remains a buzzword for the majority of customers, another box to tick besides big data and ML on slideware.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    I wouldn't go that far. I often see cited that 60%+ Of commits on Github come from Macs.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      Github is a very lousy metric to measure anything relevant to typical enterprise development.
      - scarface74 9y ago
        Even modern "Enterprise Development" is mostly web based. Few companies these days are developing WinForm apps.
        pjmlp 9y ago
Rjevski 9y ago
Remember that you needed Windows 8 or later to run the SDK. I doubt many professionals who use their computer to get work done would trade Windows 7 for that garbage.
- yread 9y ago
  thats only true for windows 10 i think. I've made apps for wp7 and wp8 on w7
  - Rjevski 9y ago
    Even with the "Blend" UI designer (or whatever it was called)? I tried to get into Windows Phone 8 development back in 2014 but couldn't as every SDK seemed to require Windows 8.
stevenwoo 9y ago
MSFT pitched our team on paying us to make Windows mobile apps and since we only did iOS/Android/web on Mac it would have required us buying new Windows systems for most of the team. My recollection from doing Windows development in 2000's was having to pay thousands of dollars per year for the MSDN/VC++. This is in addition to looking at the Windows phone market realistically and thinking - these apps for hire for Microsoft are going to be the only apps we would ever make for Windows mobile. We would definitely have done it if we had Windows developer systems ready to go.
- scarface74 9y ago
  You don't have to pay anything to develop on Windows. Visual Studio Community Edition is free. Even if you want the professional edition - I don't see any reason you would - it's $499 per seat. You also wouldn't have to buy Windows computers - you could either buy Windows + Parallels or spend about $60 a month and get a hosted Windows desktop on AWS. You can get a hosted build server via Visual Studio Online - unlimited private git repos, 5 users free (each additional user $5). 240 build minutes free per month or $40 per hosted build agent with unlimited minutes. If you really have no need for Windows machines, just use AWS Workspaces and you can get a 4 vcpu 16GB Hosted Windows workstation for $70 a month.
  - tinus_hn 9y ago
    Was it this way when Windows Phone was starting? I think the free Visual Studio came much later.
    - scarface74 9y ago
      Yes. You could use Visual Studio Express. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2012/10/30/introducing-windows-phone-sdk-8-0/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2012/10/30/int...
  - sorenjan 9y ago
    You're not allowed to use Visual Studio Community Edition to develop commercial programs. > An unlimited number of users within an organization can use Visual Studio Community for the following scenarios: in a classroom learning environment, for academic research, or for contributing to open source projects. For all other usage scenarios: In non-enterprise organizations, up to five users can use Visual Studio Community. In enterprise organizations (meaning those with >250 PCs or >$1 Million US Dollars in annual revenue), no use is permitted beyond the open source, academic research, and classroom learning environment scenarios described above. https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/ https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/
tinus_hn 9y ago
Apple requires a Mac for iOS development so my guess would be that most app developers use a Mac.
- scarface74 9y ago
  And if MS was that desperate, I'm sure they would have been willing to throw in a few Windows licenses to allow the companies to either use Boot Camp or a VM.