4 ms·

Compactified version: "I prefer Windows Phone 7 and consider it much better than the rest, so it was a smart move. It's just that WP7 has no apps now, but you'l

Compactified version: "I prefer Windows Phone 7 and consider it much better than the rest, so it was a smart move. It's just that WP7 has no apps now, but you'll all see it'll rock." He says that platform with no apps doesn't matter at all, then believes apps will magically come out of nowhere (uh, reminds me of http://twitter.com/RovioMobile/status/35985499667562496 http://twitter.com/RovioMobile/status/35985499667562496), so the platform will shine and become an ecosystem. Sure, this is probable (especially after the agreement), but they'll have very tough time making it so. We've already seen lots of great platforms failing for about the same reasons and WP7 may as well become another one. Time'll show the real outcome, and we could only wish Nokia+MS to success. Personally, I believe Nokia would've in a better position if they put all resources on MeeGo development and ability to run Android apps on it (which was already shown recently). This way they'd profit on two already strong ecosystems at once, yet won't become yet another Android vendor. But that's just my own thoughts.

Hov 16y ago
WP7 has over 8000 apps already.
erikpukinskis 16y ago
Microsoft has many weaknesses, but attracting and supporting a substantial developer community has NEVER been one of them. Look at the speed with which developers adopted XBOX360 on the back of Microsoft's toolchain. There are millions of developers across the world with Visual Studio on their machines, who are VERY comfortable with The Microsoft Way. Their resistance to downloading the Android SDK and using Eclipse to write a Java app is high. Their resistance to buying a Mac to do iPhone development is higher. Their resistance to downloading the WP7 SDK and writing an app in a language familiar to them is VERY LOW. It may be harder for them to attract the cutting edge startups... the Paths and the Flipboards... but Microsoft is not Palm. They are not Google. They are not Blackberry. There will be apps. Particularly with respect to business apps, there will be MANY WP7 exclusives. And for the big, 90-percent-of-all-app-use apps, like Facebook and Angry Birds, Microsoft will either write the apps themselves, or court the shit out of the companies who make them to get them to do a port. They will give them direct lines to WP7 engineers who will fix their bugs. They'll have a developer horde, no question. They'll screw up a lot of things about WP7, but I'm baffled that you think nurturing a developer community is one of them. Remember: "Developers! Developers!"

Hov 16y ago

WP7 has over 8000 apps already.

erikpukinskis 16y ago

Microsoft has many weaknesses, but attracting and supporting a substantial developer community has NEVER been one of them. Look at the speed with which developers adopted XBOX360 on the back of Microsoft's toolchain. There are millions of developers across the world with Visual Studio on their machines, who are VERY comfortable with The Microsoft Way. Their resistance to downloading the Android SDK and using Eclipse to write a Java app is high. Their resistance to buying a Mac to do iPhone development is higher. Their resistance to downloading the WP7 SDK and writing an app in a language familiar to them is VERY LOW. It may be harder for them to attract the cutting edge startups... the Paths and the Flipboards... but Microsoft is not Palm. They are not Google. They are not Blackberry. There will be apps. Particularly with respect to business apps, there will be MANY WP7 exclusives. And for the big, 90-percent-of-all-app-use apps, like Facebook and Angry Birds, Microsoft will either write the apps themselves, or court the shit out of the companies who make them to get them to do a port. They will give them direct lines to WP7 engineers who will fix their bugs. They'll have a developer horde, no question. They'll screw up a lot of things about WP7, but I'm baffled that you think nurturing a developer community is one of them. Remember: "Developers! Developers!"