You had to know those
freebie WP7 devices for Microsoft employees would come with a few strings attached. We imagined the Redmond brain trust was aiming for some word-of-mouth popularization along with a boost in team morale and proactivity, but as it turns out, things are a little more codified than that.
TechFlash has what it claims to be the internal memo announcing the free
Windows Phone 7 handsets -- from mobile chief Andy Lees, who
hasn't been having the best of times lately -- which sets out Redmond's expectation that employees should "evangelize" the product at every opportunity, while also setting aside some spare time before launch to develop apps (but, you know, only if they
really want to). The idea, clearly, is to harness Microsoft's massive talent pool to try and get a headstart on populating the Marketplace with compelling content; we're just not too sure the "spare time" bit is going to go over quite as well as the "free smartphone" part. Either way, you'll find the full email from Andy at the source.
[Thanks, Mint]
posted July 23rd 2010 3:39AM
class HelloWorld
{
static void Main()
{
System.Console.WriteLine("Hello world!");
}
}
Done. Can i get phone now?
@sharmanas
Compile error!
Sorry learn C#. Java does not works on WP7
@anunay Sorry. That is actually C#
@anunay He'll need "using system;" declared otherwise it'll probably complain that it doesn't know what to do with "system.console.WriteLine();"
I, like others will develop if they give me a phone....Anyone have another name for tip calculator?
They should start coding emulators in their spare time :D
It's pretty cool and they dont force you to code.
Personally i'd like to code some app for it, just to test things out. You know one or two evening gets you a pretty decent app already, it doesnt have to be a 3D game.. :P
iPhone and Android's app stores are clearly giving him way too many nightmares.
Am seeing the Kin all over again.
Fail fail fail!!!!!
MS is only doing this for the marketing factor. They don't even control the hardware.
@pspitts
You dumb dipshit. They enforce strict hardware requirements for manufacturers so they do control tue hardware.
given how behind they are, I think this is a good strategy. I hope they catch up to iOS and Android in next few years
...If any.
Just another example of corporations telling employees to do extra work on their own time or get fired. Maybe they should just do it like they do in China; make the employees live on campus, maybe allow conjugual visits, and make them work 14 hour days 7 days a week. Sure, they get paid well, but if they have no time for themselves they will burn out so fast.
Another POs windoze 7
Not spare time...spare CPU cycles. Brain implants and run it like SETI.
Who will buy this renamed POs kin
Employees should want to see their company be successful, and Microsoft has a lot of talented people who could bring out some really fine apps and there's no reason the higher-ups shouldn't encourage them to leverage their skill for personal benefit as well as helping the product out. They're not saying "spend all your free time making apps" they're saying "if you can help us out and make a killer app in your free time, it'll be to both of our advantage"
I find it troubling that such a memo is needed in the first place. Shouldn't MS employees already be stoked about WP7 to develop for it anyway? Without Ballmer having to suggest it?
♫ Bring back, bring back, oh bring back my Bill Gates to me! ♫
I wonder what he would think of an employee giving us a bouncing/screaming Ballmer app, where the accelerometer excites monkey man Steve to jump higher, flail wilder, and scream "DEVELOPERRS" harder the more you shake it? Eventually, of course, to minimize the chance of you throwing your phone against a wall or worse, poor Stevie B. will eventually go hoarse and bend over gasping for air. Hmm, if I had any spare time from my programming gig I would definitely start working on this for Android tonight...
@anderlan I was just considering what to charge...this would have to be free, but to add insult it could be ad-funded, and of course based on the tags it would pull Microsoft ads...
This isn't anything new. It's actually a very good strategy and it's not like they are forcing their employees to code. 90K employees and not all of them are coders, folks. Google does the same thing. Where do you think Gmail, Wave and Google Earth came from? They were all created by their own employees during their "spare time". It works. Good for Microsoft
@Chi Yah, except it's not spare time. Google has a policy of having engineers use 20% of their work time on projects that are not supposedly dictated by management. It probably helps with burnout. Kind of quasi-sabbatical-like.
If they really want to jumpstart content for the WP7, maybe they should implement a Google-esq 20% policy for the remainder of the year and say the 20% is to be spent working on WP7 apps.
Microsoft says :
"we want more developer and new application for windows mobile 7".
but they do:
"but YOU CAN'T program natively, also we add a new set of restriction, and of course it is not backward compatible, so if you are a former windows mobile developer, then my bad."
make apps free of charge! (also free of profit)