Microsoft Releases Final Windows Phone 7 Dev Tools

cgriffin21 writes "Microsoft on Thursday released the final Windows Phone 7 developer tools to manufacturing, giving coders a couple of weeks' lead time to get their apps ready for the launch of the Windows Phone Marketplace in early October. Microsoft released the Windows Phone 7 OS to manufacturing on Sept. 1, and its OEM partners are in the process of testing it on handsets. The Windows Phone 7 developer tools are the final piece of the puzzle for Microsoft, which is now ready to march back into a mobile market where it has fallen alarmingly behind the leaders." In related news, CNET reports that Windows Phone 7 will only be available for GSM networks at launch, with a CDMA version planned for the first half of next year. This rules out Sprint and Verizon for launch.

Comments

Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[iONiUM]

WHO WILL WIN?! Actually it's kind of too late for Microsoft already. They're entering the market so late, what can they possibly offer consumers (I'm ignoring business use cases here, since it isn't for business anyways, or so they stated) that they can't already get from current offerings, and better?

Furthermore, and this really pisses me off, the phone can't even run Silverlight in the browser. I have made a large Silverlight app and to make it work on the phone I have to re-target it, then tweak it to work with the "non-mobile but also not normal Silverlight version on windows phone 7" which is stupid. And I can't even tell people to just browse to the "regular" Silverlight page because of course, that won't work either. What exactly are they doing here?

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Mongoose Disciple]

Actually it's kind of too late for Microsoft already. They're entering the market so late, what can they possibly offer consumers (I'm ignoring business use cases here, since it isn't for business anyways, or so they stated) that they can't already get from current offerings, and better?

I had come to this conclusion as well.

The only solution I can see if MS means to seriously compete in this market is to make the hard decision to run at a loss to try to get some momentum going -- to lose money on each Windows phone in much the same way that video game console makers usually sell the first consoles at a loss.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[mlts]

The $50,000 question: What can Windows Phone 7 come up with that nobody else has, and make people willing to be locked via contract to two years with the device?

Before Windows Phone 7, WM was a great and extremely secure OS, next to BlackberryOS. It supported remote kills, encrypted the memory card in a simple, but elegant and secure fashion, allowed one to reset their password if forgotten on the road, supported a lot of applications (when Handango was the main way to purchase mobile programs), was easy to program for, and so on.

It is understandable that Microsoft wants to go from an open courtyard to a walled garden, especially with all the brickbats they have taken over the years (deserved and undeserved [1].)

As of now, we have a number of distinct platforms for writing smartphone apps, and each is different from each other by a large degree: We have Objective C for iOS, Java for Android/BlackberryOS, XNA or Silverlight for Windows Phone 7, and C++ for Symbian (IIRC). XBox coders will be fine with XNA for the platform, but iOS and Android app writers will not bother because it is a completely different platform and architecture.

Developers are looking at the numbers right now and growth rates. If I were to place my bets on a business application, it would be the tried and true BlackberryOS. If I wanted business users and consumers, it would be iOS. If I wanted consumers and some small business, Android. Where does Microsoft fit in here?

There is one niche I see Windows Phone 7 will be good for is Exchange support. I'm sure it will support encryption, remote kill, password changes, password complexity, and all that. However, is superb Exchange support good enough to get the phone into the enterprise, jostling out Blackberries and iPhones [2]? IMHO, it needs more than that to be a viable platform.

Microsoft makes some high quality products, but that isn't good enough. They have to grab market from entrenched companies and fight with Android for customers, both business and end user. I can see MS gunning at RIM for the enterprise users, but they have a fight on their hands for other markets.

[1]: A lot of Windows problems are not Microsoft's fault. They are due to application developers who do the absolute minimum to get code shipped with security as a distant afterthought. I'm sure there would be a lot fewer cases of compromised Windows PCs if application developers wrote their code to not crash if DEP was turned on globally, and allowed ASLR to function.

[2]: Apple is getting better with encryption, especially for Exchange. The only thing the iPhone is missing is the ability to set it so it erases itself if it does not get a network signal after "X" amount of time like Blackberries do. Similar with functionality to erase itself if the SIM card is removed or changed out.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[bmajik]

They're entering the market so late, what can they possibly offer consumers (I'm ignoring business use cases here, since it isn't for business anyways, or so they stated) that they can't already get from current offerings, and better?

I'd definitely agree here. After all, Microsoft wasn't 1st mover in any of the following markets:
GUI operating systems, Web Browsers, Web Servers, managed virtual machine languages, spreadsheet software, word processors, game consoles

As a result, Windows, IE, IIS, C#, Excel, Word, and Xbox are all minor competitors in a crowded marketplace.

Where is my sarcasm tag?

Honest

[Pojut]

I'm really hoping that Windows Phone 7 (both hardware and software offerings) bring something worthy to the table. Competition is a great thing, and if nothing else WP7 will at least light even more of a fire under the butt of RIM/Apple/Android devs to step up their game.

The old switcheroo

[SuperKendall]

They're entering the market so late, what can they possibly offer consumers

They can offer a wide range of phones all with a consistent UI. That's different from Apple (which has consistent UI but not a large range of phones) and from Android (which offers a wide range of phones now but with divergent UI).

Make no mistake, Android has taken over what Microsoft sees as ITS market (making phone OS'es for multiple vendors) and badly wants it back. And they still have a ton of money to make the attempt. And they have the same controls over application quality that has helped Apple in the application space.

Furthermore, and this really pisses me off, the phone can't even run Silverlight in the browser.

Microsoft does have some odd choices around technology support but I think these are only minor quibbles for what they are trying to do.

Re:CDMA, seriously?

[irix]

There are two ways to go from CDMA to LTE, which is where everyone is going.

One is to obsolete your CDMA/EVDO network and deploy GSM/HSPA which has a direct upgrade path to LTE and provides inter-network mobility. This is what Telus and Bell did because they are running comparatively tiny networks.

The other is to move your CDMA/EVDO gear to CDMA/eHRPD and then deploy LTE with mobility between CDMA and LTE. This is what Sprint (modulo WiMAX as a step in there) and Verizon are doing, because their networks and number of deployed devices are an order of magnitude larger and deploying a GSM/UMTS network a year before switching to LTE is not viable.

I'm Canadian too, but it isn't like we have some sort of technical superiority or that Bell and Telus know something that Verizon and Sprint don't.