New Orleans — With an eye to the consumer market,
Microsoft has unveiled the policies that will govern how consumer and enterprise
applications are distributed in the Windows Phone Marketplace.
Yesterday, at its TechEd conference, the company
revealed that developers would have no limit on the number of paid applications
that can be submitted to the store. Developers will receive five free
submissions per registration; further registrations will cost US$19.99 each.
Marketplace business models will provide for
ad-supported, free, “freemium” and paid applications. Distribution can be
public or private. Private distribution is available for a predefined set of
people to review applications, which was done with an eye to the enterprise,
said Brandon Watson, director of developer experience for Windows Phone 7.
Microsoft will furnish development partners with
Windows Phone 7 devices in July, he said. Applications will be written in a
hybrid version of Silverlight 3, which includes elements of Silverlight 4, he
said. HTML 5 will not be supported.
Developers can port Silverlight 4 desktop applications
to Windows Phone 7; however, they should optimize for the experience that they
are delivering, Watson said. Windows Phone 7 will introduce a new interface
called “Metro,” which exposes application notifications through tiles on the
phone’s desktop.
Further enterprise functionality will become available
through integration with Active Directory and support for policies. There will
be more opportunities to extend functionality in the future, Watson said.
“Those are just the tip of the spear.”
Microsoft is unaware of whether third-party component
makers are building controls for Windows Phone 7, Watson said. “They all
probably want to be first to market when the phone is available,” he remarked.
By David Worthington on SDTimes
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