Microsoft Launches New-Look Windows Mobile Developer Portal

[Darius Wey]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/developers/default.mspx' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmob...rs/default.mspx</a><br /><br /></div><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/ppct/auto/1225366880.usr2.jpg" border="1" /></p><p>Microsoft has just launched a <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/developers/default.mspx" target="_blank">new developer portal</a> for Windows Mobile to help advertise upcoming events, showcase applications, and introduce you to a number of team members and MVPs. And, of course, there's no shortage of guides showing you how to turn that idea in your head into a working Windows Mobile application.</p>

[iphitus]

Before you begin, you must have Visual Studio 2005


At least for other platforms, you don't have to buy an expensive development package to get started, or get shafted with old development tools.

*shrug*

[caywen]

I wish they'd spend a little more time shipping WM7 and providing developers more info on that instead of wasting time with more graphics on their web site.

I was as diehard a WM dev as they came, but the fact that I have no idea what WM7 looks like, and that it's more than a year away (they said 2010), forget it. iPhone is here today, and by 2010 will be in its 3rd or 4th iteration.

And then there's Android. And Symbian is still a huge market.

[Rocco Augusto]

I hate whenever Microsoft releases a new site and they just either neglect or forget to check the site in browsers besides IE. In Firefox towards the navigation you can see what I'm talking about. Also in the screenshot here.

Microsoft's web dev team is pretty talented, I just don't understand why they keep outsourcing their fun projects, like this, to shops that can't produce quality work. It makes Microsoft look bad.

[Pony99CA]

At least for other platforms, you don't have to buy an expensive development package to get started, or get shafted with old development tools.
It may be old, but eMbedded C++ is (was?) free. It probably won't have support for some of the newer libraries, of course, but some small programs that I wrote worked on WM 5.

Regarding the iPhone, while the tools may be free (I don't know), I think you have to pay to become a developer. Then, after you write your application, you have to get it blessed by the Apple Elite. If they don't like it, you basically have no market.

Steve