Windows Phone 7 hits the ground running with 15,000 app developers

November 24, 2010 5:01 PM
Matthew Lynley
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MobileBeat 2013
July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA
Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft announced it now has 15,000 developers creating applications for its mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7, with around 3,000 applications available today.

It’s a good sign for the infant mobile operating system that had around 13,000 developers earlier this month. A 15 percent bounce in a few weeks isn’t too bad, given that it’s going up against powerhouses like Google’s Android mobile operating system and the iPhone/iPad operating system, iOS.

Windows Phone 7 finally brought Microsoft’s mobile operating systems into an age that is dominated by apps. The Apple App Store already has around 300,000 of them, and the Android Marketplace has around 100,000. Instead of the operating system being core to the experience of a phone, like Windows Mobile’s traditional strategy, it has since become just a springboard for the user experience that applications can deliver.

Clearing several orders of magnitude to catch up to the rest of the smartphone market might seem daunting at first. But it’s also worth noting that Windows Phone 7 has a few cards up its sleeve that the iPhone and Android operating systems don’t have. Namely, it can connect with Microsoft’s Xbox Live online gaming service and promises to beat the pants off its competitors in that sector. With more than 25 million Xbox Live users, Microsoft and its partners can effectively create the phone of choice for hardcore video gamers.

Microsoft is also able to integrate its incredibly popular Office applications pretty seamlessly into a mobile interface. Android and the iPhone operating system don’t have immediate access to the well-known document editing office application. The closest thing is DataViz’s Documents to Go. But that company was acquired by Research in Motion, which quickly killed support for the budding WebOS mobile operating system. So the future of that document editing application isn’t clear on competing platforms. That means Windows Phone 7 is in a good position to make a play on the enterprise market if developers can jump on board with apps that integrate with Office.

Numbers clearly aren’t everything in this game. But after seeing the number of developers ramp up for Windows Phone 7, Microsoft employees are probably throwing each other a few fist bumps.

  • http://twitter.com/sizzleindex Profit From Trading

    WP7 is DOA

  • http://twitter.com/logicalmoron Matt Lynley

    Care to elaborate a bit?

  • http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

    I think if more people tried it more people would like it. So far, it's been a fantastic phone.

  • http://twitter.com/logicalmoron Matt Lynley

    I've certainly liked it when I've played around with the device. It won't make me drop my iPhone, but if circumstances were different It'd be a tough call between Android and Winmo7.

  • Crowd_Sorcerer

    Windows Phone 7 almost has more developers than users!The article's advertisement of Microsoft's wonderful mobile Office software is nonsense. The office suites on iPhone and Android are already far in advance of Microsoft's Office. On top of that, Microsoft's phone does not Cut & Paste, rendering any office suite completely and utterly useless.

  • http://www.mobilecubix.com/services/application-dev/ipad-developer/ iPad Developer

    First you imagine – 15000 Developer for Window phone 7 Application

  • totnuckers

    No need to elaborate. Just imagine Microsoft and AT&T giving out free concert to stage a long line for the opening sale of WinMo7. So they knew WinMo is DOA.How pathetic!

  • Crowd_Sorcerer

    WP7 is not fantastic.It has the potential to be a decent platform with about 2 more years of work. But at the moment, it is missing vital functionality, and missing the very basics that an operating system should have.

  • http://www.goldflow.com Joe Wagner

    Apple – 300,000 appsAndroid – 100,000 appsMicrosoft – 3,000 appsTotal apps available in each market certainly provides an eye catching comparison for the size of each relative to the others. Would also be helpful to know how many of the most popular Apple applications are available for Android and Microsoft. For example, how many of the top 1,000 or 10,000 Apple Apps have a version of the same app on Android and Microsoft. If Google and Microsoft also have many of those top apps then the markets are not as far apart as the total numbers would suggest. Of course, this assumes that the top 1,000 or 10,000 Apple Apps make up a relative high percentage of Apple App downloads, and admittedly, I don't know if this is the case as I don't know how long or wide the tail is for Apple Apps. Any guesses?

  • Crowd_Sorcerer

    Windows Phone 7 is obviously selling very badly.Microsoft refuses to release its sales data, which is what everyone really wants to know.

  • http://www.devindra.org Devindra Hardawar

    I totally agree that the lack of copy and paste is a glaring omission, but otherwise WP7's Office integration is still superior to the competition. Copy and paste will get added early next year, so it's not going to be a long wait for the feature either.

  • radovich

    Apple lead the trend of mobile market, and its iTunes+Hardware ecosystem is difficult to be replicated by its rivals. I don't know how does MS collect the data of developers who creating applications for its mobile operating system. Many 3rd-party creators are working for Android, iOS…without help of these vendors.Classic surviving style: A website to launch information of products, developing and get industry information for internet…http://www.ifunia.com/iphone-column/index.html

  • http://www.marahrens.com Schilder

    I´m still using my old WP6.5 and I'm curious how the apps situation looks like in a year!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_B24APEFDBOYEELHVC36RQTUNWU Joseph

    Honestly, I would say to give the platform a chance. It hasn't even been out for a month and some people seem to think it can't stand a chance. I think they will be able to if developers are on board, as it seems to be the case. I don't own a WP7 device, but I do own a Windows Mobile phone. I do enjoy using it, and seems natural jumping from a PC to a mobile device. I did want to point out that I was apprehensive about the new mobile OS, but intrigued with the use of hubs to funnel information rather than jumping in and out of apps. It seems easier to access information in theory. Plus, they completely scrapped the Windows Mobile 7 project to rewrite everything. I can't say from a dev's prospective if writing apps is a nightmare or not. I do believe the Xbox live integration was bound to happen and great to see it become a reality (I don't use Xbox live, by the way). They do need time to mature the OS and with cut,copy,paste, I am sure Apple has some patent(s) on the way they do it so MSFT would have to find a way around that. Only time will tell, but really it boils down to whether or not it can make a damn phone call. If you are on AT&T like me you would feel my pain in that lol.

  • http://www.bigjobsboard.com/ Brad Pitt

    Windows 7 is not really attractive for me. I think WP6.5 is better than windows 7. I should wait for 1 year to check what will happen in my WP6.5.

  • AmFuzzy

    I think the UI is great….it has some quirks just as all other UI's do. I used an iPhone for a long time and a WM6 device before that and several other devices for work or from my spouse and think the more I use the WP7 the more I like it. It grows on you and is efficient. The idea of live tiles is just getting started and I can see this being copied by the others. The other aspect that is ahead of the others is the way the apps can be integrated with one another in a way more sophisticated than anything done previously. I think the issues with the OS missing things such as C&P will be moot in a couple of months. I just hope MS sticks to its plan and provide frequent automatic updates that are not held back back by the carriers.

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