Microsoft had two main points in their blog post today on Windows Phone 7: we are going to promote the heck out of the marketplace of applications, and you need to get with the crowd and start developing.
We have been keeping a close eye on the WP7 marketplace, tracking its growth as with as much precision as possible. Microsoft made our job very easy today by giving us some updated ‘official’ stats to chew on:
- 3,000 total apps by the end of the week
- 15,000 developers signed up
- 80% more developers since September
Microsoft goes on to describe progress thus far as merely “warming up.” As developers are taking something of a risk by developing for the nascent platform, Microsoft is planning on making sure that their investment does not lose them money.
How? By pushing the applications all across the Microsoft universe. As we have mentioned before, Bing has been integrated with the Windows Phone 7 app store. But along with Bing there is new cross-promotion with the Xbox world, something that has the potential to give the phones a firm push as they sport strong Xbox Live integration.
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Even more, Microsoft makes the case that their advertising campaigns will feature applications, giving the apps free screen time. Oh, and Microsoft is going to use the Zune desktop software to push the apps as well.
Microsoft knows that without a firm developer community and continued application releases their platform will stagnate. Their message today was simple: they stand with developers, not against them. Now if your local friendly iPhone developer will listen is the real question.
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