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Should Developers Support Windows Phone 8?
Un pobre guey writes "Should you develop apps for Windows 8? Well, the hype and flogging are apparently in full swing. From the article: 'To be clear, Windows Phone 8 is not a slam dunk. Some, such as IDC, believe Windows Phone will eclipse iOS by 2016. Others, though, believe the trajectories of Android and iOS can't be slowed in the next few years. Nonetheless, I think a bet on Windows Phone 8 is justifiable, even wise, since anyone who purchases a new Windows Phone 8 device likely will want to load it with the latest and greatest apps.'"
Another reader points out that the full Windows Phone 8 SDK was leaked online recently, which led to some interesting discoveries: "For starters, it appears that the API is very much like the full WinRT API, but it has no JavaScript support. There is also no support for creating and working with Silverlight/XNA style. This is a bit surprising because I and most developers were under the impression that Microsoft would support the migration of Silverlight apps to HTML5 and JavaScript, but there isn't even support for JavaScript to access the phone's services. The best you can hope for is using the JavaScript support in IE10."
Perhaps, but how many people use Windows phones? Last I checked iOS and Android were way ahead of MS in terms of numbers of people using their platform. People will pay for apps if they find them to be sufficiently useful.
Having people that are more willing to pay makes very little difference if it's a tiny install base.
will anyone hear it?
Ok, so will there really be much of a market when most fanbois will be getting x86 Windows 8 devices and skipping on Metro? Without any support on the desktop/laptop side what does Windows Phone 8 have going for it to attract developers? Single digit market share for many years should be expected with WP8 while Android and iOS split the market and continue to grow.
Just like WP6.5 and WP7, it won't matter how many hundreds of millions or even billions in marketing Microsoft spends, without the ability to eliminate Android from the market WP8 gets no love outside of Redmond WA. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Perhaps... but I can't help feeling that Windows Phone (as a platform) is still very much a second-class citizen. For one thing, the Windows Phone 8 SDK is still not available (excluding the leaked copy) and we're only months away from Windows 8 (RTM) and a little later, (October??) the Windows Phone 8 handsets and Tablets come out. We haven't even seen a beta or RC of the SDK..
Worse still, given the amount of rework which devs will need to undertake to port their existing Windows Phone 7 apps to Windows Phone 8 (for the use of the WinRT API, for example). This is a baffling move, and given the history of the Windows Mobile line.... it's getting to be a bit rich.
Also, I disagree that the market place is mature. There's not nearly a large enough user base to make that statement, and hearing that Windows Phone 7 handsets won't support an upgrade to Windows Phone 8 may hurt.
face it, the days of people spending $20 on stupid beer drinking and fart apps are long over.. this is why most mobile devs saying stuff like this are butthurt.. people won't pay for crap anymore. they will however pay for substantial apps that are reliable at the required task....on any platform.
In my opinion, Windows Phone 8 would be great choice to support. Windows Phone 7 has shown that the market place is mature and most importantly, users of WP devices are filling to pay for apps. This is in big contrast to Android where most users will just try to get either your app for free, or only download free apps.
On top of that Windows Phone 7/8 supports the fantastic developer tools that is Visual Studio. There is no better IDE around and I really wish I would have it on my OS X.
Another MS Shill trolling. MS fanbois do realize that MS makes more money from Android right now than they do from Windows phone. I won't even dignify the visual studio remark.
Next time make it more obvious you signed up just to make a pro MS comment!!!
Come on MS marketing troll cut it out. One comment , way too rosy for MS products.
for battery life when applied to small form factor batteries in mobile phones and tablets.
Will it sell? So far their phones haven't sold in any volume, even Samsungs Bada OS has sold double that.
Will you gain a skill useful elsewhere? I doubt this platform will be used anywhere else, their platforms are very fragmented at this point.
Will it succeed in a niche? Erm, well no, can't think of a niche for it.
I noted the cost ($10k) MS was charging XBox games developers to certify every app and patch and I reckon if you ever make a successful app, they'll milk all the profits out in certification fees and fees to be included in the app store.
I see FP is in love with Visual Studio, but you're probably better off getting up to speed with Eclipse at this point.
Because everyone who purchases WebOS phone will want to download the latest and greatest apps... Seriously, iOS and Android already saturate the market from both ends. There is no need for something in the middle...
Article and the first time poster at #1 both stink of marketing stunts. Also do you even know anybody that has a windows phone? I doubt my friends even know Microsoft is in this market. I think they could steal some corporate market away from blackberry if they thrown in good exchange/vpn support I personally hate the blackberrys my company uses they break often and drop calls daily
Betteridge saves the day again!
Hey, ease up, Microsoft Marketing guys gotta eat too. Its not even smoke... yeah, its fog, and he's not blowing it, he's just forcefully exhaling it up your pant leg. If it any of it get's up your ass... is it really his fault? Cut him a break.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
No.
(Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps, but how many people use Windows phones?
Eleven.
We already have IOS, and better yet android. We all know that android will be the only game in town in a few years, why not just code for it?
Um, mine died. So ten.
Should Developers Support Windows Phone 8? I am reminded again of Betteridge's Law of Headlines which states "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'".
I am a Windows developer but if I'm going to develop smartphone apps it'll be for whoever offers me the biggest market: Android and the iPhone. Microsoft has a perfectly decent desktop OS, but instead of finding ways to reinvigorate the desktop using innovative technology (the way Jobs would have) they are chasing the smartphone market in a way that spooks desktop developers such as myself. I find myself not thinking "Windows for Smartphone" and now not even "Windows for desktop" but "Android for Tablet". Microsoft needs to stop copying other people's ideas, but just because it's immoral but because it's a lousy business strategy: It didn't work for Bing, Zune or anything else they've copied lately. If Microsoft don't do a reality test here they're heading for an even bigger disaster as they scuttle their flagship platform.
Or in 2 words: Betteridge's Law.
Nobody can predict the tech future that far out.
Yet another slashdotter with a whopping 2 posts to their name, a 7-digit UID, no karma to speak of, who managed to land on the site right as this article was posting to drop some praise for MS. Hey look, you got the achievement "posted a comment" today, but Im sure this is an honest opinion, right? Just happened to be a positive comment about MS 60 seconds after an article on MS was submitted?
You all really do think we're stupid, huh? That we wont notice the EXACT SAME THING happening over and over?
Why didnt you manage to work any subtle jabs towards competitors in? Oh wait, you did, well done.
The Android 'Fragmentation' is a red herring. If you are going to complain that there are more than one version of the OS in the wild, MS's phone OS is not what you could call "gotten right". Have they had a single version that could run the previous version's apps? 6, 6.5, 7 and now 8 are all completely incompatible with each other. And no phone gets updated to the new incompatible version.
Of course, maybe we are reading it wrong. Maybe the prediction that "WP8 will eclipse iOS by 2016" means that analyst thinks the 10 WP users will eclipse the 5 users left on iOS. It seems unlikely, but it seems just as likely as WP8 gaining as much market share as Apple has now.
Good riddance. If you're so poorly educated that you think that the US has a free market, then we definitely don't need you around. The US has crony capitalism instead of a free market, otherwise it should be trivial to buy a computer without having either OSX or Windows installed and the laws would require MS to give full refunds conveniently for those not wishing to use their products.
Linux is better now than it ever was, provided you choose a sane distro.
not should, but will developers support WP8.
The platform itself is very much comparable to iPhone or Android, and even had some nifty features that stood out from the competition when it first came out: Live Tiles and the People hub to name two. I don't know why developers never took to the platform -- there isn't a reason they shouldn't support it, and whether WP8 will change their minds remains to be seen.
How does Microsoft make money off of Android?
The question is will anybody put up money for a Windows 8 version of app XYZ? The amount of money going
into WP8 development is a function over how many devices out in the field and how many of those in a given
party's market. I can tell you right now, WP8 is not on our scope. We're about to release device apps for our service,
right now we're doing Android and after that there will be an iOS version.
The way I see it, sorry Microsoft, but too late and too little.
What does that have to do with the fact that Android and iOS are vastly more popular than current generation Windows Phone for both users and developers? By breaking backwards compatibility with WP7 apps MS makes it easier to switch to a more popular OS. By not releasing the SDK early they're not giving developers much time to port and test apps, so those devs that do chose to write apps for WP8 will likely not have those apps available on release (thus discouraging purchases of WP8 devices) or have buggy early versions available (thus discouraging purchases of WP8 devices.)
That said, due to the above fewer developers will make apps for WP8, reducing competition and allowing those devs that do to set higher app prices.
Not a sentence!
Post a gushing pro-MS comment and watch the poor nerds unable to contain themselves as they froth at the mouth!
Protip: dude you're obviously getting trolled for all of the reasons you stated in your post. Get a hold of your compulsion to respond (that's what trolls want) and let the moderators mod it down so we don't have to read it.
Windows Phone 8 isn't even out yet and it's already irrelevant.
No one wants it:
End users don't want it because the launch phones are uninspiring and lag the competition in both specs and style. Besides, it's Windows. Who chooses Windows if they have an affordable alternative with all the apps they need?
Developers don't want it because it lacks users and so far the platform looks less capable than either iOS or Android. It's also not a sure thing in the marketplace long-term, MS has already made developers for their mobile platform redevelop everything TWICE, so any development investment has a good chance of being wasted. Backwards compatibility used to be one of Microsoft's big things, but not on mobile.
Corporates don't want it because it doesn't yet have the central management facilities that iOS, Android and especially BlackBerry have. Its basically a brand new OS for mobile and corporates take time to make decisions and switch. Meanwhile, Android and iOS are taking over and show no signs of stopping.
Also, after Windows 8 comes out for desktops, Metro is going to be the least popular user interface style on the planet after it catastrophises everyone's Windows desktop experience. This does not make for a popular phone OS.
In short: Windows Phone 8 is dead already, it's just Steve Ballmer is too desperate to keep his job to notice.
There is no "news for nerds" value in his astroturfing, so he doesn't deserve getting a front page post, nor does he deserve a break.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I agree with the comments below about a 2nd post being this generic.
users of WP devices are filling to pay for apps.
Except their not. About 85-90% of the market is the iPhone store. There is no evidence that the Windows 7 store is any more successful than the: Android, Blackberry, Ovi (Nokia)...stores that each have a few percent. Further Windows mobile market share has been declining rapidly. Over the last 3 years your userbase has declined 40% while the market tripled in size.
As for Visual Studio for OS X... how exactly would a IDE / compiler for GDI and the .NET execution engine be ported effectively to OS X?
Good catch. Thanks for finding that.
Windows Phone (as a platform) is still very much a second-class citizen
Second? They wish!
More like tenth, behind iOS and a crapload of Android versions.
Worse still, given the amount of rework which devs will need to undertake to port their existing Windows Phone 7 apps to Windows Phone 8
Actually app devs shouldn't have to do a thing. Microsoft has repeated that all Phone 7 apps will run on Phone 8. I'm sure someone will have an app that'll have trouble, but it's clear that Microsoft's goal is to make it such that no devs will need to rework anything for their apps to work.
Windows Phone 8 would be great choice to support ... if you're a masochist and you want to prove to the world that you don't write code to make money.
Just sayin'.
I am hoping that they still announce something for XNA developers at the upcoming BUILD conference. As I've said before, no language owns 3D, not even C++. Every language should have the ability to access a hardware-accelerated 3D rendering pipeline, even HTML. I really hope they provide a way for C# developers to integrate 3D into apps (not just games).
http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/106054.aspx
On top of that Windows Phone 7/8 supports the fantastic developer tools that is Visual Studio. There is no better IDE around and I really wish I would have it on my OS X.
Surprised to see a macfag shilling for Microsoft.
That's offensive. Just because one uses Apple, does not mean they are gay. They are predominately metrosexual. There's a difference.
If "mature" means at it's peak (and ready to decline) then I agree that WP8's marketplace of apps isn't quite mature yet. There is still some room for developers to get their apps in there. But at the current rate of growth that won't last long. I submitted a science-related app a year ago and it was the first of its kind. Now there are about 10 other apps just like mine in the marketplace and I don't get as many downloads as I used to.
How does Microsoft make money off of Android?
By engaging in a patent war and bullying other corporations into just paying the extortion fee to use their highly questionable claims on the technology involved in Android.
MS is not the only doing this either. The whole thing is disgusting.
Android doesn't really have fragmentation issues. Older apps run mostly fine on newer phones, and google supplies a compat library for newer apps to run on older phones.
What Android has is choice. Win Phone 7 didn't have that (specs set by MS). i don't know if Windows Phone 8 will or not. but it doesn't really matter because -
MS are not cool.
They're like your dad trying to dance at a nightclub. Even if he gets it right, he's still your dad and it's still highly embarassing.
Linux was a good idea, then the zealots got a hold of it and now its a pile of crap.
When exactly was it that "the zealots" wren't part of Linux? The GNU stuff was founded by zealots. The kernel came out of the Minix hobbyist community which have no interest in the sorts of standardization you are talking about.
Linux is crap, deal with it. Don't argue with me, don't lie to yourself, fix it.
Linux owns
-- a huge chunk of the server market
-- essentially all of the super computing market
-- a huge chunk of the embedded market
-- is becoming a major guest OS for new development on mainframe
The purpose of the GNU project was to create a free Unix on par with the commercial Unixes. Linux has killed off most off the commercial unixes. Digital Unix, , Irix, SCO are dead and HPUX, AIX and Solaris are on life support.
I don't think the Linux community has much to be unhappy about. That's a very successful OS by any standards and it achieved the goals of the GNU project. The enterprise and personal desktop market has had huge improvements since the mid 1990s and Linux hasn't been able to gain enough ground for those 2 segments. Oh well.
You misquoted me - I specifically mentioned WinRT. To make use of the new functionality offered by Windows Phone 8, developers will have to make major changes as many of the existing APIs (Silverlight, for example) will not be supported.
Is what phone/OS a developer supports supposed to be up to some groupthink decision based on some "prevailing wisdom?"
I may be picking a few nits but this seems to be a thinly veiled form of Begging The Question considering the obvious bias in the submission.
They're not even shills. It's the same crap as the people shouting "First post!". Being a pretend shill is just the new go-to troll in Apple/Microsoft stories because it invokes a bigger reaction.
IMO, the android app market is huge, and there are apps that make revenue via ads. No better IDE ? - That's personal. I've found eclipse to be more lightweight than VS, but YMMV. Currently, windows phones are not that commonplace for an average developer to make money, and as a average phone user, I'd prefer android/ios anytime over wp due to app availability - so its a chicken and hen problem.
Fuck Beta
I really thought Microsoft had a chance with WP7. I said repeatedly they could at least show a strong third place, possibly even take over Android's position.
This was based on WP7 being really well designed, Nokia hardware being really good, and Microsoft pouring a ton of money into having a really competitive app market.
But Microsoft has screwed this all up. WP7 developers have to re-work how they develop. Hardware that should have formed the base of a wave today, will not even support WP8 tomorrow!
Microsoft is still pouring a ton on money into app development but as far as introducing platforms, it's like they are starting from scratch AGAIN and WP7 never happened. They were late before, now they are WAY too late.
Perhaps they can still pull back. Perhaps Surface will do really well and drag WP8 along behind it. But they have a massive uphill climb now, that they made worse by digging down a mile or so to start with.
Good luck Microsoft, and I say that because Apple and the market in general need strong competition... but the odds look long and I hope you realize that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
NO, they shouldn't.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Mod this up.
Most apps are crap that barely works, and that includes iOS and Android. Crap like that usually does not fly on a PC or a Mac.
The ones that are coded somewhat well, are barely even worth 99c. People are getting wise to that and don't want to spend a ton of money on something that gives them very little return.
If a developer really wants money then they need to deliver a truly working app with a lot of useful features. Angry Birds makes money because it is not only written well with few bugs, but is also an engaging game with more than just a few levels.
Make something really good and you will get paid.
Smart phones may be cool and all, but the infrastructure is missing - the network coverage is simply not good enough and what there is, is not too reliable. It may be good enough for those that mostly use messaging, but when your business depends on you being accessible and on the move, it is no good. You can't have a conversation if you lose signal every few minutes.
The thing is, once you get past the wow-factor of the iPhone et al, what you have is basically a clumsy mobile phone and a computer that is too small and slow, with an unreliable internet connection; and you are sqeezed to pay for everything you try to do, more or less. I can't see that as a lasting businesss model - the benefits are too small for the price.
MS is based on monopoly. And for monopoly, any open standard is poisonous. See how IE supports (or doesn't) HTML5.
But it is difficult to to publicly say they support open standards and at the same time try to spread Silverligth (which is MS locked).
The Silverlight-to-Win8 migration strategy is XAML. There's some different underlying class libraries/namespaces, but the basic controls (buttons, panorama/pivot) are shared between the two, which means the UI definitions can largely remain unchanged. The codebehind changes more, but if your codebehind is highly coupled to platform specifics rather than System.* .Net calls, that's the bed *you* made.
Updating an app to WinRTP is *not* a big deal.
Short answer: no.
Longer answer: Has any Windows phone really been THAT successful?
I am being sincere too. I have worked for a wireless company that I will leave nameless for over 5yrs and NO Windows phone was ever worth it. Not in the slightest.
"That's right...I said it."
Next time make it more obvious you signed up just to make a pro MS comment!!!
I guess he'll have to, you obviously didn't see the idiocy in it and just got trolled hard.
No.
Not only No, but fuck No.
They most certainly do. For developers and users. Google has already admitted this, so it's not worth sweeping under the rug. Same with piracy.
The problem is they're only addressing this now. That means even the changes they made for jelly bean aren't going to be on the majority of Android handsets until 2014 or 2015.
You can't put Windows Mobile 6 and 6.5 in the same camp as Windows Phone 7 and 8. Apples and Oranges. You might as well put Windows Phone inthe same camp as the Cray II. It doesn't make any sense. As for WP7 vs WP8, the same apps in WP7 WILL run on WP8 unmodified. So they are totally compatible.
Nine, actually, I threw the Lumia they gave me into the sea. Didn't illuminate it well if you want to know.
Huh? On what planet have you been living lately?
It is a well known fact that about every tablet or phone maker using Android gets a "visit" from Microsoft's "negotiators", and it always end in paying a "unknown to public" sum of money per device for a "unknown to public" patent portfolio.
In short - those manufactures have to pay "protection money" to Microsoft, otherwise there could be something bad happening. You know - like a monster patent process costing millions. Oh - Microsoft could lose it, but by that time the company that rejected the "protection" would be out of money. Yep Microsoft has deep pockets, and will use it against anyone standing in their way...
Suppose you've already got a game where most of the core code is written in C++ and uses OpenGL. Right there, you're hitting iOS and Android (assuming a minimal amount of Objective-C &Java simply for integrating into the platform).
Now you've got a decision: work on some cool, valuable features for the next version of the Android/iOS game, or completely re-write it using the Microsoftie languages, technologies, and UI idioms they force you to use, and have to maintain two code bases. I know which one I'd choose
Windows Phone is not going to get any real developer love until they give in and stop forcing their technology stack on us.
Microsoft, while you're bootstrapping your platform and trying to attract developers, wouldn't it make sense to make porting easier?
Problem with this is that moderators browse comments at -1 so they will see it. And when they see it they will get Fscking annoyed and become trolling victims.
-- no sig today
And of the original 11 users, yet another 1 died and so there was 0.
filling?
So they send Microsoft letters asking for payable apps?
Won't anybody think of the children and put a payable app on the windows market place before they start rioting?!??!
-- no sig today
Not sure why I'm even bothering to reply to an AC but here goes - any fragmentation is really a perception and not reality, if you look into android development at even a surface level you can see that googel have gone out of their way to make apps work seemlessly across versions.
If you're referring to there being different versions of the OS out there then in light of the above that's pretty irrelevant. Piracy... you can do that on whatever platform you feel like, and they are making it harder on android now as you say, and it will take a while to filter through, but lets not pretend that -
1) iPhones do not suffer from it
2) Windows phone has a larger enough market share that anyone cares about pirating software for it
I think this is the wrong way to see it. Maybe Win8 mobile (or win mobile 8, or phone 8 win, or whatever it's called) is the best proving ground for a new startup. If you manage to get rich there you can get rich anywhere!
-- no sig today
Perhaps, but how many people use Windows phones?
Eleven.
Smirk all you want, but that number might double over the next year.
Would that make all macfags metrofags now? /mindblown
Microsoft hires Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn
Mark Penn is the current CEO of astroturf and online sockpuppet firm Burson-Marsteller.
Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it has added Mark Penn as the company's corporate vice president, strategic and special projects.
Penn is expected to focus on consumer initiatives in his new role, reporting to Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) CEO and enthusiastic bottom Steve Ballmer. Penn, 58, is currently CEO of the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller and CEO of polling firm Penn Schoen Berland LLC.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2012/07/19/microsoft-hires-burson-marsteller-ceo.html
"Some, such as IDC, believe Windows Phone will eclipse iOS by 2016"
[quote]belief (noun): conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence[/quote] (m-w.com)
I don't see much evidence or reality in believing WP8 will eclipse anything at all. I don't believe anyone should base development decisions on the beliefs of others who seemingly don't know any better.
If anything, our collective experience should tell us that there's really nothing firm to support this blind faith in WP8.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
If you are going to complain that there are more than one version of the OS in the wild, MS's phone OS is not what you could call "gotten right". Have they had a single version that could run the previous version's apps? 6, 6.5, 7 and now 8 are all completely incompatible with each other.
6 and 6.5 are Windows Mobile, the clue is in the title, adding them in is either through ignorance or an intentional attempt to create a disingenuous comment. You might as well complain about Meego fragmentation because it's not compatible with Symbian.
7 and 8 are Windows Phone (which is a totally different OS to Windows Mobile), unifying with the Windows 8 kernel obviously can't be done until the Windows 8 kernel is finished so WP7.x was the stop-gap measure. Windows Phone 8 runs all Windows Phone 7 apps but - for obvious reasons - not the other way around (just like how iOS5 features don't work on iOS2). WP7 is still being supported and will still be supported in the future with the 7.8 release which is for all Windows Phone handsets.
It's not ideal that 1st generation handsets won't get WP8 but at least they will be supported with the 7.8 release.
Microsoft has more VPs and execs than that, so adjust your numbers.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
That's like saying they are turgid instead of rigid.
I had been under the impression that WP7 software was going to be incompatible with WP8. If WP8 is backward compatible with WP7 then it isn't quite as bad, but MS does not get a pass on 6 and 6.5. Saying MS doesn't have fragmentation because their OS versions are too incompatible with each other to count isn't really a valid argument.
My wish list for mobile platform development:
Apps distributable outside of appstore
No fragmentation issues either device capabilities, or OS version issues.
Native code and complete platform API
Same code executable on desktop
No security issues... sandboxed execution to protect the user from evil apps including denying access to users phone number, sms..etc. No global file system that can be accessed with impunity by every app.
Easy access to 3d hardware
I think windows phone 8 has a good chance of succeeding.
Do you want to have a secure job maintaining those legacy systems like maintaining IE6 only webapps? Then fine go for it. If you want to have something that should still be used easily in 10 years, by all means no.
If you want something serious, use some cross-platform development system like Java or Lazarus and compile for whatever you want. Or you make a web application with a more abstract interface. For example by separating the user interface from the application logic.
Metro simply is yet another vendor lock-in in a world that has moved on years ago. Even VT100 terminals have a brighter future than it.
They're not even shills. It's the same crap as the people shouting "First post!". Being a pretend shill is just the new go-to troll in Apple/Microsoft stories because it invokes a bigger reaction.
Do pretend shills get paid in virtual beers?
What does that have to do with the fact that Android and iOS are vastly more popular than current generation Windows Phone for both users and developers? By breaking backwards compatibility with WP7 apps MS makes it easier to switch to a more popular OS.
Where are people getting this idea? Microsoft is automatically recompiling all WP7 apps to work with WP8 devices. No developer changes, submissions or work of any kind required. ALL WP7 apps will be fully compatible with WP8 on day 1.
Problem with this is that moderators browse comments at -1 so they will see it. And when they see it they will get Fscking annoyed and become trolling victims.
Why would they be annoyed? It's an obvious troll! Seriously these sad losers need to get a grip, they're WAY to easy to manipulate.
Perhaps, but how many people use Windows phones?
Eleven.
360% increase in a year! That sure beats iOS and Android flat.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Never underestimate the ignorance of the general public. This distiction may be understood by readers here, but I doubt the staff of Carphone Warehouse will get it, and the customers certainly wont. Using the same name for different products is probaly the final nail in the coffin of what is already a dead duck.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
As usual, the answer is "no" to every headline that asks a question.
Why? Well, it's from MS and it's not yet on version 3. No point wasting anything on it. Also, it's from MS and without fail, everyone who has ever gotten into bed with MS has been fucked. They're like the Casanova of the IT world.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
but MS does not get a pass on 6 and 6.5. Saying MS doesn't have fragmentation because their OS versions are too incompatible with each other to count isn't really a valid argument.
Saying that would be wrong anyway, 6 and 6.5 are Windows Mobile not Windows Phone, it's not just that they are incompatible, they are different products, the naming convention was simply to sync with the desktop OS version number. As a commenter below said, it's like complaining about fragmentation because Meego and Symbian aren't compatible.
And you're forgetting that Linux (remember that strictly speaking it's only the kernel) has a huge chunk of the mobile phone market: all of Android, plus some other tiny bits.
or it could be the other way around.
(credits to Tim Minchin)
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
One of my clients whose company is a Android/iPhone developer was approached by Microsoft, asking them to port their applications to Windows Phone 7. They got like 2 grands for each app ported, even fart apps. This company still own the apps ported, and get all the money they receive from selling these apps, if any. Microsoft aren't buy these app, they just purely reward them for porting.
So if you asked me whether developers should support Windows Phone 8....Sure, with a fee.
It's a trap
On top of that Windows Phone 7/8 supports the fantastic developer tools that is Visual Studio. There is no better IDE around and I really wish I would have it on my OS X.
Surprised to see a macfag shilling for Microsoft.
I think it may be a tactic to keep me and the rest of the Apple butt pirates from modding him down. See, we automatically downmod anything pro-MS and pro-Linux. BSD gets a neutral. Pro-Apple is obviously a rainbow colored upmod (or stark white for newfag Macfags).
But, with a pro-MS, Apple owning, slightly negative (in that it points out something that can't be done on a Mac) against Mac post, some people may not know how to mod and leave it alone.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Silverlight and XNA will be supported on WP8.
It is backwards compatible.
Though, to be honest, not that it matters much with the current rather sorrowful state of WP7 app market...
Except for android. Don't call it linux and it will sell by the boatload.
As for linux is crap, that actually only the kernel, and is just fine. Some distros are crap, but many are just fine. The apps in some cases may need a little work, but that's a catch 22. It needs popularity to attact good software UI designers.
Windows Phone 8 is't good enough to do anything about Apples and Googles dominance in the market. Microsoft teamed up with a phone vendor that nobody wants anymore. Windows 8 is too late for the tablet market and will destroy the user experience of desktop PCs. With the forced installation of Windows 8 on the new PCs they will annoy a lot of customers. Computer noobs around the world start to ask questions about alternatives when they hear about the prices of upgrading their computer to the latest Microsoft software (OS + Office). The gaming market has finally discovered alternatives, so that's another reason to stick to Microsoft down the drain.
Of course Microsoft has so much money that they won't be history soon. And they will come up with some decent OS again in the near future. However, with Vista they could get away with it because they still dominated the market and there was no serious alternative. These days there are plenty, whether you are an Apple fanboy, Linux fanboy or a "what's an operating system" noob.
In short - those manufactures have to pay "protection money" to Microsoft, otherwise there could be something bad happening. You know - like a monster patent process costing millions. Oh - Microsoft could lose it, but by that time the company that rejected the "protection" would be out of money. Yep Microsoft has deep pockets, and will use it against anyone standing in their way...
Sorry but obviously since Samsung and Apple are going head-to-head (and Apple has vastly more money than Microsoft) Samsung could easily go up against Microsoft to invalidate patents if they were bogus.
They're automatically recompiling binaries submitted to their app store? Amazing! Thanks MS /s
In the 90's Linux was crappy, but everybody loved it because it was free. Also, it was less crappy than Windows even at its crappiest.
Linux stopped being crappy a long, long time ago. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's top tier now.
what a fuckin joke i'd rather develop for blackberry
You are rather ignorant about Linux. The desktop is about the only place in the computing world that is not predominantly Linux. The fact that you think the desktop is all there is says volumes about you.
Anyway: supercomputers: Linux, embedded: Linux, servers: Linux, desktop: Windows, Mac, Linux...
I don't think the costs for the patent protection is that high. I really hope that the Apple vs. Samsung case will show us the terms. See http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120730152649225
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Oh wait, that was for WP7 and WP7.5 and for every version before that with tons of different names and everyone of them was hailed as next coming of the Ballmer and all failed miserably. Usually the next coming doesn't even have the decency to wait until the previous prophet has bitten the dust. 7 wasn't even out when talk of 8 start and 7.5 wasn't even given a chance and current phones with it are pretty much sold with "yeah, it will be obsolete in a matter of months and you won't be able to upgrade". And yet MS is surprised it don't sell.
Will 8 do it? The signs are hopeful. Nobody has talked about 9 yet at least.
If you do not consider the countless blunders with early versions, then WP7 and 7.5 both made the mistake of making the OS and phones horribly crippled when they were announced and just plain obsolete when they became availabe. It seems MS plans their OS roughly like this:
Planning meeting:
Bill: What did our competitors release last yet?
Steve: Well, they released X and Y.
Bill: Good, we won't have that then, what didn't they do?
Steve: Well, they didn't do W and Z.
Bill: Alright, well, lets make sure we don't that either. Time to start developing
Release:
Bill: So, did we achieve our goal of NOT having the features our competitors did not have 2 years ago but they do have now?
Steve: Yes sir! We are most certainly about to release a product that was obsolete a year ago!
Bill: And have we managed to add any insane restrictions our competitors can use to laugh at us?
Steve: Absolutely, we support just one resolution, one cpu, the smallest amount of memory to be found, no memory cards, and multi-tasking? PAHAHAHA!
Bill: Excellent!
WP8 will no doubt have similar crap. And MS fanboys will seriously post long lists explaining that all the bad bits are bad and that is takes a lot of getting used to and that it is expensive... and that is the FANBOY's defence. Seriously, read some of the posts on WP7, the fanboys can't come up with anything better then "awh, come on, please?" as a selling point.
I have no idea of what WP8 will do but if past results are any indication. DISASTER!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The only problems Linux on Desktop have are: a) no big OEM support (Dell, Hp, Asus,) b) no commercial games. The only problems of hardware and adoption are the result of a) and b). If the big OEMs would support Linux on all their hardware and offer Linux on all their hardware as a pre-installed choice, almost all hardware problems would disappear. And if b) was solved and you could just go to Mediamarkt, Saturn or Bestbuy and buy some games, there would be no market anymore for Windows.
From the technological aspect Linux desktops are working very well. I'm using for 3 years Linux on my computers and laptops now without major problems. KDE is rock solid, so is Gnome2. Some people even like Gnome3.
There is even now a big market for problem b). Just see how well the Humble Game Package have done. Sure there wasn't as many as Windows users, but Linux users were on par with MacOS users.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
While there's _parts_ of WinRT available, the XAML and UI compositors are not. App development is still full-on Silverlight with the ability to tap in the available WinRT components. All new functionality in WP8 is only available via WinRT. Which makes you wonder why they didn't bring over the whole stack then.
Also, what's curious is that Direct3D apps are C++/CX, as in creating a native WinRT component that's called from a C# stub, yet there's no template to create a blank C++/CX project. So if you were to want to write parts of your C# in native code for performance, you'd have to hack your way over the Direct3D game template.
Meego was just too far behind iOS and Android. It lacked a lot of higher level framework support newer mobile devices had... the problem was it was mostly designed before the smartphone market took a leap. It would have fared well against Blackberry or Windows Mobile...
Even if Nokia had gone all-in on Meego it would not have helped them, they'd be worse off than they are right now with at least a glimmer of hope from Microsoft.
I guess they could have also gone Android but then they would have just been another handset maker without much unique.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How can this be flamebait in a thread about Windows developers?
It has been pointed out many times here that there is no "-1 I disagree with your opinion" moderation option.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
He means second class at MS, doofus. Microsoft is kind of treating WP8 as the red headed stepchild.
Also, it's fundamentally impossible to be behind about 5th in smartphone platforms. There's iPhone OS, Android, Maemo, Symbian, and Windows Phone. In no particular order.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Just because one uses Apple, does not mean they are gay. They are predominately metrosexual. There's a difference.
Yes, the difference is that there is no such thing as a metrosexual. You're either gay or bi.. One or the other.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Make something really good and you will get paid.
Most people who play Angry Birds haven't paid a penny for it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
1. Slashdot posts a story about developers who use Microsoft
2. Someone replies saying they use Microsoft..
3. Everyone on slashdot goes berserk, accuses poster of being a troll, shill or whatever.
I know the majority of people on slashdot feel that using Microsoft products is about on a par with raping baby pandas, but the fact is that there are a lot of people who write Windows software and use Microsoft software to do it, and they're not being forced to do so at gunpoint. So what else do you expect them to say? "I write Windows software, but it it is all total crap and I would stop tomorrow if only they released my wife and children ?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Hey! I *really* love architecture!
New file formats, new propriatory and patented widgets and a refusal to license them could ensure that blackberry, iPhone/pad, et al can't interoperate with the Office stack.
so its a chicken and hen problem.
It's egg, dude.
Or you translating some remarkably tedious non-English saying "which came first, the chicken or the chicken?"
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
MS are not cool.
Oh well, they must be terrible then.
I didn't realise slashdot had turned into another online coffee shop full of hipstes with ironic spectacles and facial hair.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You must be the first geek to throw away a lumia that was actually given to you!
The reasons are simple, just ask yourself "do I want Microsoft on my phone?". Yes, there is the answer. No. Nobody does. Microsoft became "uncool" long long ago. Nobody wants an uncool phone.
Microsoft missed the one boat that could have maybe just maybe gave them a fast start in the marketplace, they could have purchased RIM. They could of done away with the old timer brand "windows" for a smartphone, and used "Blackberry". Fact is, when people think about Windows they think about an antiquated PC, not some latest and greatest gotta have it smartphone. Add to the fact that Windows has very little, if any, brand loyalty. People don't feel connected to Windows as something that is a good brand. They think of it as the commodity PC, exactly the monopoly that Microsoft built, and profited from since inception.
The veeps at MS need someone cool to step through the door and get through their thick skulls that "Microsoft, Windows, Windows Mobile, Office" will never be "cool" brands. The brand will always be kind of like "Hormel" in the food space. Even if they did everything right and created the best smartphone OS out there, the masses don't want to be carrying a "Hormel Phone"
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Slashdot doesn't have to be an online coffee shop with these people to realise that marketing is relevant to how a product will sell. Nor is it key to the realization that the Windows brand probably has negative worth in the phone handset market.
Many people buying a phone aren't just buying a phone but also an accessory. A vast number of people do care that their phone is cool. But the brand "Windows" has the perception of something boring that you have to use at the office to do dull tasks. On the other hand, iDevices (iPod, iPhone, iPad) have the perception of being something fashionable and fun to use. Google is also seen as being cool and providing stuff that is fun to use. But Microsoft Windows? Boring beige PCs that you use in offices. Not exactly the marketing image you want for what will be a personal accessory.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
And you are quite right. So let me add that to the list.
-- Linux is the dominant smart phone operating system
So what else do you expect them to say?
http://slashdot.org/~GirlsDoIt/comments
We expect them to say more than nothing what so ever. This account was created just to post in this story. You can not even accurately call this "a Slashdot user"
Just because one uses Apple, does not mean they are gay. They are predominately metrosexual. There's a difference.
But isn't the Metro interface a Microsoft technology?
I'm running Windows 8 preview edition on my old Atom tablet. Metro works really well and i was amazed that it works with just 1GB of RAM (sure, more would be better). There are still some things missing, but it's very fast and way how apps are designed, makes it easy to port them for WP8 devices. I'm not big fan of Microsoft, but they could be on to something this time..
No, Samsung depends on Microsoft for Windows.
Sure they could sue, but they risk that Windows licenses suddenly "happen" to cost a lot more for them afterwards.
You forgot Bada, and if you're going to count Maemo, you can add WebOS to that list.
I don't know that's the only problem for Linux on the desktop. I was defending it in other areas. On the
a) home and small business desktop
b) enterprise desktop
(a) and (b) are really different markets there are problems. I think that sort of view is common among /.ers because they aren't powerusers of the office products nor the artistic stuff. Lets just make a quick list of problems:
a) Inferior office suite (though the catch up in the last dozen years is fantastic, and you are finally starting to see reasonable percentages of Mac and Windows users choose OO).
b) No mail client with integrated task allocation and management features (i.e. nothing like outlook).
c) Lack of quality non-developer BI tools: power spreadsheets, natural language DB query systems, any device query engines don't have Linux support...
d) Few universal communications clients
e) Almost total lack of ERP software
f) Lack of desktop sharing and presentation solutions (which is ironic given how much easier this is under X11).
g) No advertising support software that I know of.
h) Lack of design packages for web, print, video... aimed at the designer community. Lack of quality in those that do exist
i) Lack of sophisticated Javascript tools
I think I could probably come up with another 50 areas where Linux is deficient on the desktop. Windows has a tremendous depth of software in so many areas, there would be a strong market for Windows even if Linux desktops were vastly superior. That being said I think Linux has gotten to the point that with Linux games it might be a good fit for about 1/2 the consumer desktop market. Selling systems preloaded with a few dozen gigabytes of applications of all different stripes at time of sale would be appealing, even if those applications are individually inferior to their commercial counterparts. GCC replaced commercial compilers (like the CC it was named after) long before GCC was "better".
In other words I don't think Linux is anywhere near wiping Windows out, but I do agree that if it caught a break it could start to establish a beachhead and then grow the software ecosystem. Ironically, Microsoft's Windows-8 strategy which inevitably means pushing up hardware costs considerably might create that opening on the low end of the consumer market. I think cost factors might work for small business, and creating industry targeted applications for small business is easy. For mid/large business with developed software stacks I don't think Linux is remotely close.
Just because one uses Apple, does not mean they are gay. They are predominately metrosexual. There's a difference.
Yes, the difference is that there is no such thing as a metrosexual. You're either gay or bi.. One or the other.
Sure there is. Like it or not, language evolves and new words are made up quite often. Personally I think it's silly but metrosexual is actually a term that has little or nothing to do with sexual orientation aside from the fact that it's used to describe heterosexual men of a certain type.
Basically, what the other guy said.
I wasn't using "it's not cool" as a value judgement in itself, you need to infer a little further before being offended by this. Also perhaps before moaning about what slashdot has become, check if the person you're replying to was here before you?
It's not cool -> It won't sell -> There's not much money to be made on apps
Now sure, being the must-have app on a small platform might net you a decent payday, but unless Windows experiences runaway success (see "it's not cool" for why I consider that unlikely) there's not going to be anything like the money in it that there is for, say, iOS.
Seeing as how we're in a discussion about whether devs ought to bother developing for the platform, I consider "it's not cool" to be quite pertinent to the situation.
It is eight. They gave me one for free, but I forgot it on the chair when I left presentation, which was around time, that I got one for free.
839*929
My key problem (that caused me to first drop .Net and then all MS products) is that Windows programming has long been dominated by Microsoft's desire that you make your apps integrate with their Enterprise stuff. But if I am building the next Angry birds then any MS specific enterprise libraries are just bloat. You might argue that a programmer can ignore the enterprise stuff. But a good example would be that .net started out as a small library to take on Java. version 1.1 filled in some gaps but by version two office had taken over and it started getting really big. By version 2.5 it was huge and the bloat was all enterprisey.
.com style object factories.
Also everything was becoming way more complicated than it needed to be. Instead of some simple object you would instantiate and then call member functions it was all wonky with
So if Windows wants any chance for me to even look at programming for their devices I will only look if they break up their SDK into a basic SDK that will allow me access to those phone types bits such as the screen, audio, accelerometer, messaging, networking, etc. Then if I want to screw with outlook or other MS products then I will install a separate addon SDK.
Also with the SDK I don't want to follow some new fad that MS happens to be following. Just give me basic system calls with more advanced calls hidden away for more advanced features. So for sound give me a sound class with member functions such as PlaySound(soundfile). Don't initially make me use a DirectX complicated sound system that is so complicated that I end up just copying and pasting sample code blindly into my software and then hiding it behind my own PlaySound(soundfile) function. For those people who are hardcore give them a backdoor where things are necessarily weird.
So here is a bit of code that I want to be able to write (sans error handling and async stuff):
Net *net=new Network();
MSData *data=net->getFile('http://mysite.com/sound.mp3');
SoundSystem *sound_system=new SoundSystem();
sound_system->setVolume(100);
sound_system->playSound(data);
Don't make each of the above steps 10 lines long with all kinds of complicated templates and parameters. When you do that you might impress your CS professor but you have missed the point of encapsulation and the KISS principle. I love an SDK where you can start to guess the class names and the names of their member functions. So if you have a class called SoundInitSys3BuildFactory that requires that you pass it (MS_HRDWR_SYS_SPKR_EAR_HEAR2) you have failed. I would be willing to bet that MS has failed.
MS might make all kinds of arguments about good CS practices but at this point I have already bent over backwards to learn Objective-C for the iPhone. I did this because it was where the money was. But iPhone had the advantage of the being the first smartphone where the effort might pay off. At this point MS needs to study the concept of friction. For every small obstacle they put in people's way they can plan on loosing a fair chunk of their potential audience.
Because people cannot make their opinions separate from ideological views?
You may not like Microsoft, but some of their products are really good.
You may like Apple but find faults in how they do things.
You may be a supporter of the GPL but realize that it doesn't work for all projects.
I use to be a Linux Zealot and a Microsoft Hater. But then I realized how hypocritical my views were. I hated such a feature that windows had, until it came on Linux where I was using it and showing it off.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'm not wasting any effort on a Windows phone. Waste of plastic and Li-Ion if you ask me.
Then use -1 Overrated?
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Well, I was talking about the system. If you don't need all the software, you can use Linux just fine. And if my listed issues a) and b) are solved, the commercial software will follow the games. I think there is nothing that a home user would miss, expect the games.
The problem is like with the egg and the chicken, no games and no commercial software means less people like to use Linux and less people like to use Linux means no major OEM support. And no major OEM support means less people like to use Linux. And less people like to use Linux, less commercial games and software is targeting Linux.
Here are the efforts of Samba and Wine very important. I think a log of commercial Windows only software you could run in Wine now.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Should you develop apps for Windows 8?
As it is a proprietary operating system, that does not allow to program against open standards, you should not do so.
If you develop for a plattform, you tie yourself to it. Therefore you make yourself (and the users) dependent on a proprietary software vendor.
So instead of developing for a proprietary system, you really should target to free (as in freedom) operating systems or open standards.
I mean you could just use HTML5 and Javascript, which will allow you to target any device with a web browser.
They're like your dad trying to dance at a nightclub.
You mean like this?
Why on earth would a VP of a successful multinational company use a second-rate phone?
Wouldn't the smart thing be to write a good game for the Wii?
Only if you're a sufficiently large company. The console makers' developer qualifications (including "relevant video game industry experience") are meant to poach successful developers from other platforms, not to allow new developers to debut.
You used the word "most" so your post is not incorrect, but it's important to note that Mac OS X is a commercial UNIX. It is very much alive, and growing in share.
IBM would contend that AIX is very much alive as well - they sell shedloads of it on their P-series big-iron servers to enterprise customers.
Posting anonymously to not undue deserved moderation.
.NET is a terrific compiler and a good technology stack.
So how does one port an application's model layer (application logic, business logic, or game logic) from standard C++ or Java to this "terrific compiler and a good technology stack" without rewriting the model line-by-line by hand, which introduces bugs and violations of Don't Repeat Yourself when changes to the model in the language for one platform don't automatically propagate to the model in the languages for other platforms? This is a problem with Windows Phone 7, which requires all applications to be written in a verifiably type-safe .NET language, making ports from iOS or Android harder.
By any reasonable measures vastly richer than the stack for the web.
That's because browser developers have deliberately crippled the stack for the web, offering no API to gain the user's consent for camera and phone access or reading the user's contacts. This pushes developers to things like PhoneGap.
Well, I managed to put Android ICS (yeah!) on my Lumia, so 8.
I suspect that Wine won't matter much. Emulation has never been popular. My belief is that Linux will win the desktop market the same way it won the server market. The steps are:
1) Average user runs mostly proprietary software running on a proprietary OS.
2) Lots of free software becomes available and for all but the most demanding tasks they switch. So mostly open software on a proprietary OS.
3) The open software runs better open systems and the few remaining proprietary pieces are ready to port. So this becomes mostly free software on a free OS.
the future of computing [...] doesn't involve desktops, except as a relatively niche market. A reasonable tablet/phone (I assume they will end up merging, but don''t ask me how) will be all the computer that most people ever need
Then what will most people be using to create works that are viewable on a "reasonable tablet/phone"? Or are you trying to imply that those who create works are "a relatively niche market"?
Just because one uses Apple, does not mean they are gay. They are predominately metrosexual. There's a difference.
Yes, the difference is that there is no such thing as a metrosexual. You're either gay or bi.. One or the other.
That's a stupid way of looking at it... I'd say, either you think sex is for reproduction, and have kids, or you think it's for fun, and don't. If you don't have a spouse and kids, you're gay, and God hates you.
You can tell because he invented evolution. :D
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
So how should one test an application for WP8 without having to pay four figures for a 24-month mobile voice and data plan? Or does Microsoft plan to have Windows Pod Touch 8 devices manufactured the way Apple makes the iPod touch to match the iPhone?
You all really do think we're stupid, huh?
Apparently yes ... every time the community is in shock and upset. Half the comment so far are replying to this stupid and weak post.
Wake up, this is just an evolution of the "First Post" troller that found a new way to have the /. community actively react to their post again. This is a troll, this is not an genuine opinion, not a MS shill (let's be serious for a moment), the author probably does not give a shit about MS or Android or Apple, he is just a troll that gets his kick at all the outrage he caused on /.
You would think a community such as Slashdot would be the ones who understand "all you have to do is recompile". I'm sure there might be an odd app here and there that will not but the only thing the "incompatibility" means is that binaries won't work, but the code will once you compile it again..
I agree that OSX certified Unix but it is a desktop Unix. NextStep was never a server Unix either so I don't consider that to be anything more than just the "Linux didn't make it to the desktop" problem. In the same way that in the late 1990s Irix survived on desktop systems without the server OS..
IBM would contend that AIX is very much alive as well - they sell shedloads of it on their P-series big-iron servers to enterprise customers.
AIX has been experiencing high single digit growth as the others are fading and the server market still exploding. I don't think even IBM doesn't believe that's not shrinkage plus of the effect of their competitors dying. I spent all day yesterday with IBM their entire campaign this year against Oracle is focused on Netezza (Linux based hardware solution) and the more VM friendly licensing model for DB2. They mentioned, rightly how much better the whole thing would be with z-series (mainframe) but they understand where the sale can be made. AIX is in trouble but IBM is fine with that.
This is seven, in fact. I am trying for years to get my name out of that list. I don't own one, never had, but some market researcher in Redmond vastly inflated the numbers by adding me.
Not only is windows mobile market share declining rapidly, but its been fragmented... First with the incompatible windows phone 7 replacing previous versions, and now it looks like version 8 will break compatibility yet again.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
It's Nine. I found you phone on your chair, and I've been hanging it around my neck as a way to ward off hipsters.
They are making porting easier, just not from the platforms you think...
There are two cases of porting. The first is porting from a platform with a similar API, which makes porting the output (graphics and sound) easier. Porting from Windows to Windows Phone 8 is this case. The second is porting from a platform with a similar input device, which makes porting the input and game balance easier. Porting from iOS or Android is this case. If Microsoft wants to concentrate on the first case, then how easily will games designed for a mouse and keyboard, where either the mouse is used in some capacity other than pointing and clicking or the keyboard is used heavily or both, make the transition from Windows to Windows Phone 8?
There's iPhone OS, Android, Maemo, Symbian, and Windows Phone. In no particular order.
Anonymous Coward mentioned Bada, and where's BlackBerry?
Unlike most people on the site here I think the Windows 8 platform is the correct direction for Microsoft to go. To not have a major phone or tablet platform would spell the death of the company--guaranteed. While they are certainly playing catch up you cannot argue that in 3 years they've turned around something that most major companies cannot do. Microsoft is an 800lb gorilla that somehow manages to put its muscle behind everything it does.
The Xbox platform has succeeded in the market to being a dominant player in the space. 10-12 years ago people swore that the Xbox would fail and that nobody could compete against Sony. Yet here we are today where the Xbox 360 has been a mature platform that drove forward online play for end users.
I suspect the merger of the platforms across the board will drastically improve the integration of products that right now are jarring to use. Hopefully MS can smooth out the rough edges.
"which came first, the chicken or the chicken?"
For certain values of "came"...
I suspect that Wine won't matter much. Emulation has never been popular.
For one thing, Wine Is Not an Emulator. For another, if emulation has never been popular, why has Nintendo introduced Virtual Console to compete with PC-based emulators that run infringing ROM images of games for discontinued video gaming platforms?
Anyway: supercomputers: Linux, embedded: Linux, servers: Linux, desktop: Windows, Mac, Linux...
Set-top devices: not Linux, at least not in the sense that end users can easily install community-made applications on them.
They aren't moving enough Windows Phones to get out of the "Others" ghetto in market share analysis:
http://allthingsd.com/files/2012/07/Strat_ana.jpg
This is the latest report and yet again, the "Others" category contracted. It is now at 4.0% total containing who knows what because new WindowsPhone7, but likely old Windows Phone6.x that is shrinking faster than WindowPhone7 is growing.
iOS/Android = ~90%
Blackberry = ~6%
Others = 4%
IMO it is questionable if you should bother supporting Blackberry, let alone delving for real scraps in the "Others" category.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
and now it looks like version 8 will break compatibility yet again.
Its been officially announced and repeated by both Nokia and Microsoft. I think we can just say it as fact, no need to hedge with "looks".
The sad thing is, if Windows Phone devices were at least as open as Windows Mobile was on real phones like the PPC6700 (ie, not open source, but no bootloader locks or other impediments to having fun), it would probably be a viable contender, if only because Android has been out now for ~3-4 years, fatigue over locked-down hardware and the stupid kernel-ABI problem that breaks every fscking non-opensource driver on phones every time Google releases a new version is setting in, and claims about its "openness" are starting to feel more like cruel teasing.
Unfortunately, Windows Phone is a Microsoft Cargo Cult. Microsoft makes design decisions blindly mimicking Apple, with no apparent understanding of why Apple did it and/or the practical consequences of doing so. It's a phone with random, conflicting agendas that serves none of them well. Imagine how Android would have stagnated during its first 2 years if XDA-Developers.com hadn't existed to push the envelope and give it features it didn't officially have yet. It's like Microsoft studied everything that Android owners hate about Android, then made a point of doing the same things even more forcefully. It's like a repeat of pre-Nexus One Android. Windows Phone devices are sold with underpowered hardware that doesn't have enough flash or ram to survive even a single major OS upgrade, and Microsoft tries to sell devices that are basically paperweights after 3-9 months because they refuse to even go through the MOTIONS of giving them enough headroom to grow and evolve for at least a year or two.
Nobody sane is going to knowingly buy a phone that has no short-term future. When somebody buys a new phone, they don't give a damn if the PLATFORM will be around for years. They care about the specific piece of hardware they're holding in their hands. If that device has no future and has a visible EOL before it's even a month old, the platform itself might as well shrivel up and die, because nobody is going to view it as anything besides a waste of time. It's like Microsoft learned ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from the OVERNIGHT (literally) loss of 97% of their Windows Mobile user base to Android the moment they announced that Windows Mobile was officially dead, and their final phone officially had no future because it had 4 buttons with the wrong symbols printed on them instead of the three officially-approved ones. Apparently, they were deluded enough to think people would keep buying an EOL'ed phone whose future was officially declared to be nonexistent.
And Apple sources a lot of parts from Samsung as well. There's a reason why it took B&N to tell MS to shove it. B&N is pretty much the only company using Android that doesn't also produce products that use MS software.
The problem is that commercial open source end-user software is still taking baby steps. By that I mean platforms like Kickstarter are just starting to emerge. Also they have to compete with established end-user software like Adobe, Photoshop, etc.
So with software it's the same problem as with games. I don't see open source games starting to compete with commercial proprietary games. The bar of entry to market is very high in games and commercial proprietary end-user software. You can't just go to Walmarkt and offer your game, you are crushed by Ubisoft, EA.
Everywhere, where quality or price is an issue Linux won. Servers, Phones, Super-Computer. But on the desktop the bar of entry to market is very high, because of the Windows mono-culture.
That Valve wants to bring Steam to Linux is a very big step for desktop Linux. It could be a game changer.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Which is their little way of saying, "Fuck you, we've got ours. Bend over and rewrite from scratch in the new platform that your customers will soon demand. Oh, and we won't help you. Even the littlest bit, because you're just a pesky developer and not a corporate client. Now, go twist in the wind while we retire to our summer homes."
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Please explain how Rovio (creators of Angry Birds) had $106 million in revenue in 2011, then.
I hate pandas.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Don't think Windows Phone 8 is anything to laugh about huh? Well that's fine. No problem. Don't develop for it. Ignore that it will be able to compile native code, which means soon after release any programming language written in C/C++ will be ported to the platform (MS's C/C++ compiler, though it adds new APIs can still compile standard C/C++. You don't have to use MS APIs or types, you just don't get the full functionality of the OS as with any other OS). Ignore the idea that it will have the same base kernel and driver support that the PC will have. Go ahead an keep ignoring that. I doubt MS will leave the phone with only Direct X support for long. I suspect OpenGL will be ported to some extent in this version, and further in Windows Phone 9. Java will be ported and you will have a phone capable of doing everything a PC can do. In fact, if the kernels are the same, a full fledge java may run right out of the box. By the time Windows Phone 9 hits I suspect the differences between the PC and phone kernels will be minimal, if they exist at all.
Can android and iOS compete with a nearly full fledged PC? We are about to find out.
Perhaps, but how many people use Windows phones?
Eleven.
Smirk all you want, but that number might double over the next year.
22 is not that high of a number.. just saying
emulators as primary support to be in regular use
What is a Java, .NET, or JavaScript virtual machine if not an emulator?
I agree with you. Those packages to develop good versions can involve hundreds of man years of work. The Linux kernel, Firefox, Open Office... there are only a few products with anything like 100 man years of of intensity / funding. Conversely in the server area
a) products were less mature.
b) where they weren't less mature they were so expensive
So free software could get a foothold more easily. I think (b) is the approach for the low end of the market. The people who buy $350 computers don't want to buy a $300-2k software package. There is money to be made.
By making it a requirement you are absolutely correct that makes porting from a low level language complex, maybe even a full on rewrite. But I don't see how that's a failure of .NET.
The failure is that .NET on iOS or Android costs a developer hundreds of dollars per year payable to Xamarin in addition to the $99 per platform per year app store fee. A student or hobbyist tends not to have that kind of money.
A secure version of Active-X would be incredible.
That's what Google Native Client is supposed to be.
You mentioned WinRT in your parenthesis as an example. Taking out your parenthsised example, I quoted your statement in full, and certainly quoted the point your statement was trying to make.
If the point you were trying to make was that developers would need to make changes to their apps to make use of new API's, that statement is true, but it would not be unique to Windows Phone. That statement is true for every platform out there.
This guy showed the world how well that works out.
The estimates for Samsung and HTC were royalties of 8-15USD per phone paid to Microsoft. That's quite a bit of cash. Some have claimed that Microsoft is making more off Android phone sales than their own Win7 mobile sales.
I mean seriously expecting a good discussion the moment "Microsoft" is in the title?
I do agree that pre-WP8 is a shambles, which is why Windows Phone's have remained a distant 4 th in the mobile race.
Also it is very difficult to be enthused about a platform that has so little market penetration.
However the current Windows 8 development platform (across all device types) is shaping up to be quite impressive and considering Microsoft finally has a kernel that works across mobile/tablet/desktop platforms, its looking good that it might finally be an enjoyable platform to target.
I think Microsoft needs to promote the "pay to develop" model to get developers hooked on their platform as the are not going to come willingly.
However the biggest error in the comments I am seeing is that people seem to forget that the MOST prolific development platform on the planet is Windows. Its not iOS, its not Android, its not Linux. There are more Windows desktop applications then any other platform combined, and this includes many many open source projects.
MIcrosoft finally unifying their development across all platforms, opening up to allow "shudder" the HTML/JS developers on board for semi-native apps, and unifying API's such as Direct X, the sheer number of capable developers available to produce content is signification and should not be overlooked.. I would argue that there are more developers available for Windows Phone then any other phone platform combined.
However; is it too little too late? Will those developer's cross into phone/mobile development and will that be enough to make WP8 succeed I guess we will find out in the next year or so. If Microsoft can't make WP8 work then they should drop out of the mobile market altogether because this is the most directed push into the market I have seen them do yet.
Most of the comments are so ridiculously biased against Microsoft that you can't expect any real discussion about the merits of their new development platform when the vast majority of commentators are clueless about it.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Because of the merch out there... Angry Birds T-Shirts / "Board Games" / Snacks / pillows / stuffed animals... They make far more there than they do on the game itself.
Then do the exact opposite of what he advises.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Yes. If that's what they're being paid to do, that's their job. If they don't like it, they should resign.
Pre 7.0 apps need major retooling, if not a complete rewrite, to work with 7.x. And then it has to be done again for 8? Why would people bother? Hell, even Apple maintains some level of compatibility from one release to the next.
If Microsoft's goal is to throw a mulligan across their entire Windows 8 brand, they are succeeding marvelously.
I don't think licensing technologies like ActiveSync is equivalent to patent wars against Android. It's not to say that they don't do this -- they all do -- but in this case Microsoft licenses tech to Google, and they pay for it. I don't know where the patent war implications are but I'm willing to be enlightened. Otherwise this is FUD.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Let me get this straight. No Javascript support, no Silverlight/XNA support? You realize there are no other options (all WP development is currently done with Silverlight/XNA)? Is this article suggesting that there will be no support of any app development?? I highly doubt that. Clearly some facts need to get checked. I will not be buying one myself, but no need to make M$ look any worse than they already are by misrepresenting the facts and presenting wild (stupid) speculation as technical facts.
Should developers support Windows Phone 8? No. *MIcrosoft* should support Windows Phone 8. Now be a good boy and go fetch your uncle a beer before he cuts you out of his will.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
But the big advantage of servers are open standards. The whole internet is build on open standards. it's very easy to build a competing product, for say a HTTP server. Compare that with the difficulty to build a competing office suite (the whole OOXML or docx formats). Or a competing 3D graphics application. Or the mess with the CAD application formats.
If the real world would be like the end-user software world, you would have 5 different sockets for lamps, 10 different power plugs. And each TV would come with a custom proprietary power and cable plug.
Then there is funding. Nobody would fund you if you start a competing application for, for example, MS Office or Photoshop, with the goal to compete open in the market. OO.org, LibreOffice, GIMP goal is not to compete commercially, so they survive as a not-for-profit organization. Why do you think nobody just takes GIMP and sell it in Wallmarkt? Because nobody can compete with Adobe in the marketplace.
The end-user software market have not only a high bar of entry (only few big stores and few big OEMs) but it's also saturated. Adobe, Microsoft, Macaffee, Norton, Ubisoft, EA. Just go to your next Bestbuy or Wallmarkt, there are no small independent software firms.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
The only problems Linux on Desktop have are: a) no big OEM support (Dell, Hp, Asus,) b) no commercial games.
Oh, please. There are lots more problems than that. For anyone experienced in Windows, there are a million different little things that make transition painful as hell. Linux still can't render fonts that don't look butt-ugly. No Linux desktop looks or works exactly like Windows Explorer. Driver support is iffy for a wide range of hardware (and the Linux team's idiotic insistence on shoving all the drivers in the kernel source instead of providing a consistent binary interface means this will probably never be fixed). Perhaps most importantly, most productivity software is not available for Linux. MS Office is not available on Linux (and please don't tell me that Open/LibreOffice is good enough as a substitute; until it works and acts like MS Office with 100% document compatibility, it just isn't). Photoshop is not available on Linux (and please don't tell me that GIMP is good enough as a substitute, or it will take me a full five minutes to stop laughing out loud). Name any major software package that people use in their day-to-day work and the odds are very great that it won't be available on Linux.
If open source is serious about taking over the desktop, it will stop chasing the chimera of Linux and let that be reserved for servers and embedded systems, where it works quite well. ReactOS would be a far better platform for taking over the end-user desktop, if it ever got any real level of support from large organizations with resources to donate.
Ssssssss!!! The Windows, it burns us, it does!!!! Nasty Ballmerses!!!
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Most of the comments take into consideration the US and European market. If WP8 is almost as good as android\apple, then it has a strong potential in emerging markets - if marketing is done right, it can definitely take a substantial market share in Asia(Esp India or China). Just because all the previous incarnation failed, it doesn't mean the new one will. It will be really hard to gain market share, but with right approach, its possible.
But all the pro-Microsoft blogs can spin it as having 100% year-over-year growth.
The problem is, anyone with a PC for any length of time knows these apps have been free on the PC by hobbyists and website owners forever. Downloadable free software on Windows is not exactly new, and expecting people to pay for lower quality software on mobile than they got for free on PC is rich.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
. it's very easy to build a competing product, for say a HTTP server.
I'm putting that down to complexity. An HTTP server extension is usually under a few man years of code. Its easier than an office suite just because it is less complex not because of open standards. I don't think it is any easier to write extensions for Apache than for IIS.
If the real world would be like the end-user software world, you would have 5 different sockets for lamps, 10 different power plugs. And each TV would come with a custom proprietary power and cable plug.
That's what electrical devices were like in the late 19th century. Also if there were a standard 10 years it would have been the Microsoft standard. Microsoft was the defacto standard. The free software community rejected the Microsoft standard and successfully shattered it first via LAMP and then via. Firefox.
The issue is that computers grew like almost no other new technology and with little government help; and government are frequently the ones that impose and enforce standards.Partially that was because of the American mood, we had a new conservatism which created amounts of private investment capital while stripping public investment capital. Partially it was because the productivity savings from computers were so massive and so obvious government investment was not required. But regardless there is a lack of enforced standards.
Nobody would fund you if you start a competing application for, for example, MS Office or Photoshop, with the goal to compete open in the market.
I don't know about that. Apple in 2004 funded a competitor to PhotoShop when Adobe was threatening to drop the platform. And they were successful. Sun did fund a competitor to MS Office for years and took StarOffice from a kinda crudy office suite to something in the same ballpark as MS Office. And let me point out, AOL funded a competitor to IE for 6 years. The last 2 were both open source efforts.
OO.org, LibreOffice, GIMP goal is not to compete commercially, so they survive as a not-for-profit organization.
Actually the goal of OO.org / Star Office was to compete commercially. Sun wanted to push something like the cloud SaaS model ten years earlier. They absolutely wanted to compete with Microsoft commercially. If you mean selling boxes of software Office isn't really that either, though it is a huge money maker it is also the lynchpin of Microsoft's entire server based suite and their OS monopoly.
Because nobody can compete with Adobe in the marketplace.
Of course they can. Heck Adobe just lost to Javascript. Adobe's rip technology lost to HP's (essentially free) PCL. Adobe Premiere got its but kicked by Apple with iMovie and Final Cut Pro/X. GIMP can't beat Adobe doesn't mean no one can.
When I hear those ads on the radio about how I can make money on my computer at home even though I'm totally retarded, is what you're doing what they're talking about?
"my OS X"? LOL.
"On top of that Windows Phone 7/8 supports the fantastic developer tools that is Visual Studio."
"tools... is" -- basic English fail.
And the punchline, because I'm sure your MS shill trainers didn't actually tell you anything about the industry: Windows Phone 8 is going to flop, partially because every single phone out there with Windows Phone 7 can not be upgraded to 8. I don't think there has been an iOS device yet that didn't get at least two major OS upgrades, and even Android users have a good shot at getting an update or two.
Cash your check quick... there might not be many more.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
This is a big deal that few people noticed. Penn has a reputation as a vicious shill and skeevy but highly effective marketer, and many internal to msft have been wondering why in the world he was hired. It'd be odd if he wasn't part of the Win8 team, and he'll probably be very effective... for a while. And then something very ugly will happen.
One has to wonder about the conditions that would allow MSFT to bring such a strong and volatile actor inside. (Then again, with upper management rife with powerful chaotic evil, maybe bringing in strong chaotic neutral is a better gamble...?)
Or vagina.
Windows Phone is now in the position that Apple was, at the height of the PC era - a proprietrary closed platform. One difference though. It has no users, whereas apple had a few percent.
Who is going to waste the time on a platform that is closed, proprietrary, expensive, and used by no one. Not me. Add to that, the fact that just about everyone hates Microsoft, as a results of their various recalcitrant behaviours, both past and present, the fact that carriers don't want to do business with MS for various reasons (eg. VOIP), and the fact that Microsoft has been attacking and blackmailing various manufacturers with some of the weakest and most embarassing patents, and the fact that ever past MS partners has been royally screwed butt-wise, and you have the most doomed to fail platform in history. If I was a mobile maker, I wouldn't dump any of my cash into the Microsoft void.
If MS are not cool that leaves no way to describe Android, which is so nerdy it should come with a pocket protector.
Oh crappp.... Lumia without the il means that it DOES NOT illuminate!
Still preferable to having your dad turn up at a nightclub and show all your friends how much he's down with the kids and this 'modern music'.
There has been much time uploaded to YouTube and in the press where Microsoft explains and justifies their design decisions.
They're trying. But they're certainly not copying Apple. I also think they're wrong as hell too, but...
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
"Windows Phone devices are sold with underpowered hardware that doesn't have enough flash or ram to survive even a single major OS upgrade"
wtf? I've got a first gen Samsung Focus and I've been able to put every new OS version on it and, as far as I know, will be getting 7.8 with no problems as well. I'm not sure where you get your information but I certainly can't put any trust in anything else you've said.
Furthermore, under-powered is complete bull since the OS isn't nearly as heavy-weight as the competitors. I have had absolutely zero slowdown problems on my phone. Animations are smooth as silk, which is far more than I can say for most Android phones I've used.
Photoshop? I know Apple have alternatives for Adobe Lightroom (Aperture) and Adobe Premiere (Final Cut), but which Photoshop competitor did they fund? Closest I know of on OS X is Pixelmator which is third-party...
Are there actual physical processors with the JVM or CLR instruction set - that predate either virtual machine?
Why must the hardware's availability predate that of the VM? Phone emulators are often distributed to developers before the corresponding phone is sold to the public, so I guess that requirement makes them not emulators by your definition. If the requirement is dropped, Java Card and Jazelle qualify as hardware that can execute JVM bytecode.
I'm not a photo guy but my understanding is that when Aperture came out it was designed to compete with Photoshop, there was no Lightroom. Other than HDR what doesn't Aperture do? I'd assume Photoshop has more features but I'm looking for big stuff. Aperture seems much more full featured than Lightroom.
I own Pixelmator. I'm not sure I'd compare to it Photoshop.
If he had a six digit or less UID and more than two posts, maybe he could have gotten the benefit of the doubt. As it is, there's no doubt to give him the benefit of.
If you were to priase MS, you would probably be modded up and certainly not be modded down. But he's not you. Brand new account praising some company? SHILL!!
Free Martian Whores!
I paid for it. The PC version.
Since when it is an expectation to make hundreds of millions off a game?
How many Slashdotters would have turned down the chance to be involved in a small group of developers to make a game, for fun, that raked in just millions?
It's a ridiculous sense of entitlement to by crying about how many people may have not paid you, when you have made a very considerable standard of living with the people that have paid you. It's very much like playing basketball reasonably well and being bitter you are not getting paid NBA levels of money.
Angry Birds is:
1) Well written. Experienced very few critical bugs that took away from any enjoyment.
2) Well thought out game play.
3) Excellent graphics.
Not everybody can make Angry Birds, but don't sit there like a bitch complaining about piracy and the platform when your product is full of bugs, crashes, a poor excuse for motivating in-app purchases, paper thin plots, questionable game play dynamics, etc.
To make it clearer, stop trying to sell a gas station sandwich which is barely edible and then complain with a straight face why you are not as big as McDonald's and it must be everyone else's fault.
That's my point.
Why are you spending all this time writing lots of comments telling people they've been trolled? It's almost as if you have something to gain by doing so...
Clever signature text goes here.
Not only is windows mobile market share declining rapidly, but its been fragmented...
It hasn't been fragmented, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone are different products, that's why they have different names (that should have been your first clue).
First with the incompatible windows phone 7 replacing previous versions
Windows Phone 7 was the first version of Windows Phone, the 7 is just to tie it to the desktop OS version number, nothing more.
and now it looks like version 8 will break compatibility yet again.
WP8 is compatible with all WP7.x apps, WP7 devices will all be upgradeable to WP7.8 (which is not released yet) and future devices will be WP8.
I had a WP7 device for a while and TBH i found it to be great (very fast, the social integration is better than iOS, i liked the live tiles and XBox live stuff was pretty cool), it was a Samsung Omnia 7 so it lacked things like DLNA (which they brought later on) and a front-facing camera also the Zune Desktop software is fucking awful IMO. My main work system (a laptop) is a mac, my lounge system is a mac mini (with AirServer) and in the other entertainment room there is an Apple TV so a key area where WP fell down was integration with that setup. I could install a DLNA receiver on the mac mini and use the built in DLNA on the other TV then use the WP Connector on Mac but then iOS obviously works far better with that setup and the remote XBox stuff on iOS is not that far behind WP. WP8 has the potential to be really good if they can integrate with the core Windows OS and with XBox a lot better (AppleTV-like functionality on the XBox).
It hasn't been fragmented, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone are different products, that's why they have different names (that should have been your first clue).
That's even worse, it shows that MS are willing to drop products and leave users high and dry. Windows mobile didn't exactly command a large marketshare, but there were still plenty of users left hanging. And now, anyone who bought a window phone 7 device is going to be left high and dry again as they won't be able to upgrade to the latest version, which is a bit poor considering how new some of the handsets are.
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But many do, ergo the dev profits.
That's even worse, it shows that MS are willing to drop products and leave users high and dry.
Companies do that all the time (iWork.com, .Mac/MobileMe, GoogleWave), hell there are 3 year-old Macs that can't run Mountain Lion. It's a different product, in fact the marketplace didn't even close until May this year, nearly 2 and a half years after the final release of Windows Mobile.
And now, anyone who bought a window phone 7 device is going to be left high and dry again as they won't be able to upgrade to the latest version, which is a bit poor considering how new some of the handsets are.
That's the reason for WP7.8, which is to be released around the same time as WP8.
You just got trolled hard bro. How does it feel?
Emulation has never been popular.
Would PowerPC Macs have sold well if they couldn't run any 68K applications? Would Intel Macs have sold well if they couldn't run any PowerPC applications?
Lots of free software becomes available and for all but the most demanding tasks they switch.
In practice, some of these "demanding tasks" aren't demanding on the CPU as much as on artists and on lawyers. Examples include video games, software to play back rented films, and software to prepare tax returns.
Microsoft routinely make their own developers bankrupt by skimming them periodically: upgrade, pay up or die... .NET technology? tough luck,now go learn some HTML5 and consider that a career advancement :-)
Whatever skill you develop for any Microsoft technology will last less than 18 months, so will any codebase you produce now using Microsoft products.
Smart developers are tired of being milked like cows and are abandoning the sinking ship.
Have you invested deeply in
Unless you've been living under a rock, MS is cool again.
Surface, W8, WP8, Azure, Kinect, Outlook.com,...