There’s a dirty little secret that developers and handset makers don’t want to talk about. It’s something most people will have no difficulty wrapping their heads around: money talks. It’s widely expected that Nokia will at least one device running Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system at an upcoming event dubbed “Nokia World”. Now in order for the device to get some serious love from consumers, it’s going to need some apps. Problem is, developers don’t want to waste their time writing apps for a platform that has a limited number of users. That’s where this article from CNN comes in, it sheds some light on the techniques that Nokia and Microsoft are using to lure developers to their platform. Todd Moore, who makes an app called “White Noise”, was given a free Windows Phone and was asked to port his app to Microsoft’s new platform. How well did it do? Let’s just put it this way, sales were so low that he decided to stop supporting Windows Phone. He says: “It was kind of a horrible experience. The whole thing was just a complete mess.”
Similar stories are easy to find, one involves a former eBay employee revealing that Microsoft offered him and his team hard cash. A Nokia spokesperson says: “We do not disclose these arrangements, as each is different.” What does it say about your platform that developers need to be paid off just so that they can start paying attention to a new operating system? Now granted, when Apple announced the App Store, they got several venture capitalists on stage to announce the iFund. Only the best developers would get money to develop and refine their apps, but that money didn’t come from Apple, it came from private investors who pooled their money together.
Will Windows Phone become more popular once Nokia starts selling devices running the OS? Of course it will, but how many checks will the Finnish handset maker have to sign so that developers bring their Android and iOS apps to Windows Phone?
[Via: The Nokia Blog]