Microsoft comes clean on doling out cash, free hardware to entice Windows Phone devs
By Chris Ziegler 
posted July 14th 2010 1:59PM
posted July 14th 2010 1:59PM
posted July 14th 2010 1:59PM
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Coming clean. Unlike some other tech company.
@dotCARBON
Good move from MS....$$$ and hardware. Sounds sweet if you are a dev.
@dotCARBON
that's why android would be the linux of smartphones
@dotCARBON
oh wait it already is
@dotCARBON Geez, let it go...
@aforty Apple deserves some bad PR once in awhile to get rid of some of that overhype. They've absolutely EARNED that kind of hype, but it gets ridiculous after awhile.
@dotCARBON
Just like basketball players getting enticed to come play for certain cities with money and a room full of ladies...
I see no negative in this article and I approve.
@dotCARBON I feel like half the people replying to this are just doing it for the front-page.
@pufflye Android is Linux! Period.
@Seven2k Half the reason I develop for Android right now is because I got a free Droid for going to a developer lab. If Microsoft sends me a free test phone then they definitely have my support.
@Infinity
yeah I would of said ubuntu but you know these apple hipsters are blinded and know no other OSes
@mrdrmuffin You can send them an email, engadget mentioned it in the SDK beta post (or the source link of the post, I don't remember). In the MS blog post from the source link there is even a course to get used to developing for WP7. Since it's free I registered :D
@Infinity
Linux underneath. Java what u see.
@dotCARBON
umm..to be honest, apple has earned some hype. but about it being "absolutely EARNED that kind of hype" i would say hell no. I think apples core demographic of its recently revival has been w/ people that are in my age group 18-26, typically college aged people or recent graduates. and you do not believe how many people i've met over the years on my university campus who would be absolutely in love w/ their apple iphone, or macbook, literally evangelicals, but really didn't know about it. "did you know the macbook is like the only notebook that has a camera on it, so i can take cool pictures like this on photobooth, or talk to people over the internet" uhhhh, really? or the classic "did you know that apple computers are more secure, and get less viruses than windows..thats why i made the switch". less viruses sure, more secure HELL NO. but then again, if you were making viruses for computers would u want to target practically every home and business in the world, or a small market so small that even Microsofts most recent screwup (vista) outsold every apple os from 1970-2008. it makes sense. and lets not even get started w/ the many iphone people who simply didnt' understand there were other phones on the market that could do cool stuff. i could go into detail about me loading flash websites in class (for tutorial work), loading and viewing powerpoints, or even using a bluetooth keyboard (the keyboard was honestly the best, because when i told the young chap next to me it was a feature he couldn't use on his iphone, he honestly looked a little perplexed that there was something his iphone COULDN'T do)
So yes, deserving of hype for bringing great products to the market, yes. Deserving of a nationwide cult like following, as if they never did or couldn't do any wrong. You'd have to be brainwashed to believe this, or simply one of their recent ''marketed believers''
But anyways, back on topic. i see ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong w/ this at all from MS standpoint. they understand that the app environment is one of the leading reasons that a phone will either succeed or fail, and they're setting themselves up to succeed rather than the latter. I've often heard from many blog writers, here on engadget included, that when making the move from iphone to android, one of the things that bothered them earlier in the android life cycle was the inability to get the same apps on android. Microsoft saw this problem, and they're smart enough not to set this new ship out w/out all the equipment its going to need out the gate. Kudos to MS for making a smart business decision. I'm sure they'll just roll this into the WP7 marketing budget, which will undoubtedly be huge.
@simbadogg I dont disagree with you at all. But their products have been, for the most part, of fairly high quality. I'm definitely no Apple sympathizer, but I can see what they've done right.
@dotCARBON Seems like if Engadget runs a story about anything, whether it be cats, dogs, flash drives, or even fishing poles, somebody brings up Apple, there are way to many sheep running around here that look like little robots.
@Mikeserena Robot sheep maybe?
@HighestRanked2
MS is totally buying their way to success. Just like Google paid for the best software engineers and apple paid for the best hardware engineers. Did we all not know how this game called business is played? You pay for talent if you want to win.
MS saw the mistakes that Palm with made and decided to preemptively spark developer interest. How is that not a smart move?
@HighestRanked2
No...They're spending money to ensure their adopters have the best experience.
@dotCARBON
So do you remember how long it took them to fess up on the RROD issue?
* Jeopardy theme song*
@dotCARBON How does one apply for this? I'm a Windows dev and I've wanted to get into the mobile scene. I was going to go Android, but if MS wants to persuade me otherwise
@dotCARBON Yeah, not coming clean is seriously hurting Apple... might as well say there's something wrong and come up with a solution most of us can like.
@pufflye Your ignorant attitude makes you no less blind than them.
@EJ less time than it took for apple to fess up to the antenna issue with the iphone4.
As long as they aren't paying anyone to make fart apps..........
@Epyon You know, I've always wondered why everyone antagonizes those fart apps. I remember the first one, 'Pull my Finger', got banned (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/09/rejected-iphone-dev-to-apple-pull-my-finger.ars), and everyone was decrying Apple as a obstructor of freedom. When they finally acquiesced, it was used as the archetypical example of why the store is filled with crapware.
I guess you can't make people happy.
@LordCookies, there can be horrible apps (like the fart ones). It's the idea of blocking content that many highly dislike. If they can block a simple app they can block anything. Principle of the whole thing.
@LordCookies You make a good point.Let's see..
231,564 in the app store today.
452 "fart" type apps.
452 / 231,564 = %0.0019
Yes, clearly, it's all fart apps.
@fragmit So there's ONLY 452 fart apps?
@dotCARBON I even went to all the trouble to come up with percentages to help the slower people like yourself. Oh well, just cant win sometimes.
@fragmit Hang on a minute, that's 0.19%, not 0.0019% (unless I'm reading it wrong). That's quite a big chunk.
@fragmit No need to start insulting ~_^ 500 is still a lot of apps, even when you compare it proportionally to the rest of the apps.
@fragmit
That actually means that 0.195% of the apps are fart apps.
@Evan Yes indeed. Math fail. I was holding my iPhone 4 in my left hand when I ran the calculator app. Sorry.
@dotCARBON Sorry, I am in a douche like mood today. Bitter that I own an iPhone 4.
@LordCookies
Just because it would be wrong to ban fart-progs from the store doesn't mean they're not still crap programs that perhaps shouldn't have been made in the first place and certainly shouldn't have been made over and over again.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
@NortherngeekUK Typical Apple fanboy skewing figures to suit themselves. It's 0.19%... assuming the 452 figure's correct.
@fragmit 452/231564*100=0.1952% math fail?
@Funderful But that's not really something that Apple has control over. You see the same shit in video games. Rockstar comes out with GTA3. All of a sudden, you see a whole bunch of "open world sandbox" type games, and a disproportionate amount having to do with crime. And don't get me started on WWII shooters. Something gets popular, and everyone else tries to jump on the bandwagon.
@dotCARBON thats the equivalent of like 10% or 15% of apps in the webOS App Catalog. And if you look in the App Catalog, there are actually a lot of apps. So while 452 may look small compared to the App Store, its still a metric crap-ton of crap-ware.
@oldmanhorton
Don't download it if you don't want it, simple as that. I don't see fart apps being featured, I only see them if I search for them.
Sounds like the kind of business strategy necessary when going up against two entrenched giants in the Mobile space like Google and Apple.
@Prevacator
Yeah, and I genuinely hope that Microsoft's efforts to woo developers in the phone industry works as well as showing console game developers the money to wrestle platform exclusivity away from the Japanese giants in the game industry.
I hope Windows Phone 7 reveals the iPhone as the modern day RAZR it is. I hope it forces Apple to change or face the same fate as Motorola who clung to the RAZR far to long.
Now if Nokia would just take this play out of Microsoft's playbook and get OVI store on track and make sure MeeGo is ready for prime time and polished for launch this year, then we as consumers can look forward to really great days ahead. MeeGo definitely has the potential to make Android an afterthought but it has to be ready to go from day one and Nokia and Intel have to throw major weight behind the platform. Otherwise, it's just going to be an also ran OS for geeks.
Windows Phone 7: the future
@pufflye It's rather past already without multitasking.
@shake Does it not do multitasking, at least in the smallest sense of the word, somewhat similar to iPhone? I believe programs will still run some background tasks, like music and task completion.
@shake So does that mean Windows Mobile 6.5 is ahead of Windows Phone 7???
@reuterrat
majority of third party apps will not be able to multitask however they will have the ability save the app in it's current state... This is what apple calls multitasking
@reuterrat
all of windows phone 7 core apps will multitask
@pufflye
Yeah, good luck with that!