Microsoft courts webOS developers; 1,000 make the leap | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft courts webOS developers; 1,000 make the leap

arstechnica.com

21 pointsFlemlord21 comments

I don't think I'd describe this as "making the leap" - I have a published TouchPad app, and I was curious about the upcoming Mango/WP7.5, so I emailed about the WebOS->Windows offer - basically, I got an email back with a list of resources to explore to build a Windows Phone app. Not sure what the followup is going to be.

There's nothing really free about it - my dev environment is OS X, so I'd have to get a copy of Windows 7 ($100 from Amazon), install it in Parallels for the Mac ($60), join Microsoft's AppHub ($99/year), all to get (maybe) a free WP7 phone.

Also, from what I can tell, there's zero overlap between WebOS and Windows Phone 7 development, so all these WebOS devs would be starting from scratch.

Frankly, I'm kind of surprised that Google's Android dev relations team didn't make a similar offer.

Oh, as a point of reference, developing and releasing apps for WebOS 3/TouchPad cost nothing, and the development environment ran on Linux, OS X, and Windows - basically, it's a collection of command line utilities, WebOS 3 running in a VirtualBox, and Google Chrome.

"leap"? I think us webOS devs just wanted free hardware to expand our apps beyond webOS, but many still remain (especially in light of all the people with webOS devices over the weekend).

I'd like to check WP7, but I am certainly not buying another phone for that - other platforms already take most of my time. Palm had to be very aggressive in getting phones in the hands of developers because most of them were already fully allocated to iOS and Android. Microsoft has more or less the same problem, with the difference WebOS was exciting and new, while WP7 feels like developing for Windows. For the same market share, I'd go for exciting and new.

I strongly advise they be much more aggressive than Palm was. Developing for Microsoft platforms is a business decision, not a privilege.

Wonder how many will be on WP7 in 6 months? I wonder what contract (if any) was required?

Still, if I were a WebOS dev (focused on phone not tablet stuff), and someone offered me free hardware, I'd jump.

There's a lot of costs attached to developing for a platform. Hardware is generally a small fraction of it.

True, but in this case, the platform in question (WebOS) is disintegrating... someone offers you safe sanctuary while you reconsider your options... why not?

It will be interesting to see what comes of this.

> why not?

Why tie resources to develop for WP7 and not invest in iOS and Android? Most probably, Palm developers were either already investing in the two market leaders and porting to WebOS or going with WebOS just for fun (it is fun to write code for WebOS)

WebOS was fun to develop for (HTML and JavaScript!), but had only 1% of the market. WP7 looks more like the two market leaders (as in "less fun") but has about 3% of the market. Looks like an improvement.

I'd say it's worth a try, but, so far, Microsoft hasn't made contact.

If you already have iOS and Android covered, WP7 is worth a shot, but I wouldn't ignore RIM as a viable third player - their phones appear to be making inroads into the low-end and that segment is huge.

The latest global figures give WP7 1.6% of the market. Even Bada has more at 1.9%, and Bada is at least rising.

Serious WebOS devs would gladly take free stuff, but likely not bet on WP7.

Well... If Microsoft decides to give free stuff, I may give them my attention for free too.

It's a good thing we didn't write off Android in mid 2009 when they had 2% of the market.

Note: I'm not saying WP 7 will lead the world in 2 years. I am simply pointing out that market share 2 quarters after your first device launches isn't the best measure of future success.

The 7 means version 7 not 1. Just saying...

I'd rather say Microsoft, with versions 1 through 6.5, learned how not to make a mobile OS. WP7 is a radical departure from the Windows CE kernel. WP7 is to WinMo 6.5 what NT 3.1 was to Windows 3.1.

With a better user interface (NT was as bad as 3.1)

There have not been 7 versions of Windows Phone, it's the first version. The 7 is to tie it into the current release of Windows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile

And? Windows Phone is not Windows Mobile. Much like webOS is not Palm OS.

And so Microsoft learns the same lesson HP did: It's easy to get people to go to your platform when you practically give hardware away.

They are only giving the hardware away to developers who have already published an application in the store. I think its a pretty good decision by MS as they are targeting developers who have at least shipped something. I don't know if I would want to switch away from android/ios though. I don't think MS will abandon the platform but I think they will end up abandoning silverlight in the future.

The quality of published apps on WebOS is questionable (there are probably both great and very poor developers out of those 1,000). What Microsoft is telling people, in contrast to HP, is that they are not intending on abandoning their phone strategy anytime soon, and are willing to go through great lengths to woo developers over. At the same time, had this offer been extended to iOS devs, they would've had a great response rate for hardware, and it would still remain to be seen whether anyone would actually start developing for Windows Phone.

This does add another way to analyze the hardware-ecosystem tradeoff that people are considering with the Touchpad fire sale: what's the sweet spot for burning money in order to build a thriving ecosystem?

I would make the leap too if they would support perl or python. the dynamic languages get treated like second class citizens

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