Microsoft begins to "curry favor" with developers-how does the development community respond?

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This month, Microsoft has been acting frequently: Following the launch of Windows 8 and surface in New York last week, Beijing time will be in San Francisco's Windows Phone 8 conference this morning, and in Wednesday, Microsoft is in Washington to hold a 4-day build developer conference marking the end of a series of activities.

In the final Act, Microsoft has a point to "curry favor" with the developer. But that's true, because the future of the Windows 8 platform is really in the hands of developers, especially given the many surface of Microsoft's tests: one of the most significant issues affecting people buying surface is "not enough apps."

Microsoft is "mediocre" in terms of the number of existing applications in Windows Store: The Windows Store is estimated to have 10,000 applications at the time of the press, while the single ipad App store has 700,000 iOS apps. Among them, the use of a wide range of applications Hulu Plus, Angry Birds, Skype and so on before the release of Windows 8 only hurriedly "arrival", the domestic QQ today to launch its Windows 8 version, and the Windows 8 run on Twitter and Facebook, has not yet seen its figure.

Still, developers have a need to develop programs on Windows 8, which can be seen slightly one or two from Microsoft's 4-day developer conference sold out within 1 hours.

But how do people in the community respond to "Developing applications on Windows 8 platforms?" Take a look at the Icandi Apps founder Andy Weekes, who is represented by the market for individual users, and James Devices, chief strategic executive of Myriad Dravitz, who represents the market for the business user.

Andy Weekes,icandi Apps founder: Microsoft contact me to develop the application of its platform

Before stepping into the software development industry and setting up Icandi apps, Andy Weekes was a high school music teacher in Birmingham, UK. The reason to cross the line is because he has always been interested in computers and technology.

Weekes became a developer in 2008, influenced by Steve Jobs's keynote address at the iphone 3G and App Store application stores. "In 2007 I was the fruit powder that was lining up for the iphone, and the App store hasn't been released yet." When it was officially released, I had no idea that I was going to develop the application. It was completely captivated by the idea. ”

Now, Weekes is already dedicated to applying full-time development, he said, although he also developed for Android, but he prefers iOS objective C and Xcode development environments. "Xcode is more flow-free from the beginning to the end, and Android doesn't have that process experience for developers." I personally think so. ”

The Night Sky application, developed by Weekes, previously had iOS, Android, Mac, and now has more Windows 8 versions.

Weekes, which has developed 3 programs in the App Store, is naturally easy to get used to in iOS development. But why develop on Windows 8?

In this regard, Weekes said, for high quality should be the program, multi-platform publishing (including Windows 8) not only can increase their market share, but also allows users to have more choices.

As mentioned earlier, the App Store is just an empty shell store without an application, so Microsoft is also "trying to impress" developers with more development applications.

"Microsoft contacted me. In the beginning, I asked them, what is the distribution channel of the application? I'm not interested in how the site downloads, "Weekes said. "When they told me there was a pattern like Windows store, I knew that my product the Night sky must be there." They invited me to Microsoft's UK headquarters, so we started to develop. ”

While Microsoft is a bit too focused on its own, there is no denying that the huge market there is quite potential. Microsoft is sure to be popular for a while, because Windows operating platforms are the default operating system for many PC users.

"The market's potential is huge. This is obvious, and it is quite challenging and fun to develop programs that must be able to be used on both desktops and tablets." "Weekes said.

Many people criticized the Windows store for not having a program when Windows 8 was released, but the problem should soon be gone. At the very least, Google has released a seach application that allows users to access other apps to Google. At the same time, Microsoft has released the application of Skype.

Microsoft's Windows store itself is good, but the dual nature of the traditional and Metro interfaces can be confusing. Like the note-software Evernote, the traditional and Metro versions appear when Windows searches, but they are not easy to separate, and when users log in to one version, another version is unknown.

So what does Weekes think about the problem?

"I don't think it's a big problem," he said, "but I think this is a performance of Microsoft's concession." Because if you have all the Windows 8-style UI, the risk is high. For users, that seems to change too much, especially for business users. ”

Weekes mentioned that the biggest difficulty in developing a program for Windows 8 was that it was impossible to find a dedicated Windows 8 device to test before the application was published (Windows 8 was not officially released).

So now, with more Windows 8 devices on the market, developers should be flocking. By then, the number of Microsoft applications will increase, both within Microsoft, or third parties.

In talking about whether WINDOWS8 will bring huge profits, Weekes frankly: "Really do not know." He added: "It's too early to talk about profits." Because Windows Store is now more inclined to launch a free application. But then there should be a change, and hopefully the results on Windows 8 will be as good as what I've got on iOS. ”

James Dravitz,myriad Devices chief Strategic executive: based on the needs of enterprise users

As James Dravitz says, if one of the main target markets for Windows 8 is corporate users, there is no dispute. Dravitz is the chief strategist at Myriad Devices, the North Dakota State Mobile Consulting and development company in the United States.

Myriad Company's business includes mobile application development, enterprise integration and mobile strategy/consulting. Most of its customers are seeking to rationalize the internal process of the company; Myriad was invited to discuss whether the corresponding company customer should develop Windows 8 application software.

When the company asked some of the previously developed Android/ios programmers to turn to the Windows 8 platform, Dravitz said there was resistance, but the resistance was not from the Windows 8 platform itself, and certainly not from the programmer's ability or personnel issues.

"We are not unable to develop on the Windows 8 platform, we have enough people and they have enough power," he said. "The problem is market demand--our customers are corporate companies, and customers say demand is based on platform applications, and we develop them as needed." Most fundamentally: Customers want to move the business, but they already have the corresponding mobile device to deal with. The integration of mobile phones and PCs is good, but we've already implemented them through our customers ' in-house software. ”

"While it is tempting to first take the initiative at Microsoft's App Store, it is not enough to get us out of our customers by the word ' Microsoft ' brand," he said. Dravitz added. "We might do that in the future, but at the moment Windows is not flowing either from us or from the customer's request," he said. ”

It is one thing to persuade developers such as Andy Weekes to reset their products to Windows 8 platforms, but there are many challenges to persuading developers, such as Myriad, who focus on enterprise users. So how much difference is there between people who specialize in enterprise users and developers who specialize in consumers?

"The consumer market is very different from ours," Dravitz said. "At first, it would be difficult to convince developers to develop Windows 8 for the business user market," he said. For others, it's relatively easy-games, tools, etc. Like Microsoft is now looking for developers to develop applications in this situation, the market opportunities and usage is very high, because there is not much room to choose. Low-competitive environments are good for developers who want to seize the initiative. ”

But at the end of the day, Dravitz stressed that as long as time is right, they will be ready to sit on Windows 8 ships. "The question to be solved is how to convince our customers that developing a Windows 8 based application is good for optimizing the internal processes of the enterprise and increasing customer impact." He said: "If we haven't solved this problem, we're not going to risk developing Windows 8 apps." ”

The stronger the strong, have tried the water beach Windows 8 Platform

Indeed, it is too early to say. But it has to be admitted that, while there are occasional rejections or wait-and-see Sounds for Windows 8, the allure of Windows 8 is relatively large. The stronger the so-called strong, many successful enterprises have been landing Windows 8 platform.

Google has been increasing its presence on Windows 8, and the New York Times and the FT have all been successful, as well as Babbel, which offers 11 language versions on Windows 8, and so forth.

It seems that in the days to come, it would be difficult to hear such news. (Compile @ pretty clear)

Article compiled from: TechCrunch, TheNextWeb