Microsoft hopes employees will write WP7 apps in spare time
updated 11:55 am EDT, Fri July 23, 2010
MS turns to hobbyist staff to boost WP7 app list
Microsoft is hoping to bolster its early Windows Phone 7 app list with those made by its staff in their free time, a memo obtained Thursday said. As part of the same note that promised free WP7 phones to staff, mobile lead Andy Lees encouraged workers to write their own apps to help support the launch. The company is further rolling out an employee developer program to fast-track apps made unofficially within Microsoft.
The program has limits, as staff can't write apps that would profit in a way that violates the contract they signed for employment. They also need a license for any app that uses content they've created at the company.
An attempt to kindle development within Microsoft reveals continues pressure to swell the size of the Windows Phone Marketplace as quickly as possible before it launches later this year. The company has already said it's providing monetary incentives to developers to write or port apps for WP7 and has made guarantees that developers would make a minimum amount over a certain period regardless of how well they sell. Microsoft's new OS supports virtually no existing Windows Mobile app and is forcing it to start from scratch, which may create problems as rival Apple and Google stores have tens or hundreds of thousands of apps each.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Feb 2005
It Has The Smell Of Success!
Presuming we're talking about the success of the process wherein a horse clears its digestive track and the smell of the resulting road apples.
By successfully making the shift from full-time and part-time developers to spare-time developers, MS is going to totally own the phrase "Windows Phone 7. There's a crapp for that."