WHITE PAPERS SPONSORED PROFILES JOB BOARD WEBINAR CENTER FREE SOFTWARE BZ RESEARCH ALMSHAREPOINT EVENTS CALENDAR PRINT/PDF EDITION PRINT/PDF BACK ISSUES

SUBSCRIBE TODAY CUSTOMER SERVICE EDITORIAL BEATS GUEST VIEW GUIDE SD TIMES 100 GUIDE EVENTS CALENDAR ADVERTISING ARTICLE REPRINTS REPORT A BUG SITE MAP

ABOUT US BZ MEDIA NEWS BZ RESEARCH NEWS ON MONDAY SPTECHREPORT SPTECHWEB SPTECHCON IPHONE/IPAD DEVCON ANDROID DEVCON PRIVACY POLICY CONTACT US

HOME >> OPINIONS

From the Editors: Windows Phone’s mighty ecosystem

By SD Times Editorial Board

November 11, 2011 — (Page 1 of 2)
You’ve seen the stats: Google’s Android is the best-selling smartphone platform, followed closely by Apple’s iOS. Microsoft’s Windows Phone is a distant follower, and RIM’s BlackBerry is fading away.

Don’t count Microsoft out so fast. The company enjoys several advantages that none of its competitors can challenge. Microsoft knows how to woo developers, including large ISVs and small startups. Microsoft understands enterprise IT. Windows runs on most desktops and notebooks.

Those are all true, but as our special report on the Microsoft tools ecosystem points out (see p. 30), that’s only part of the story. No company—none—has the breadth of tool partners that Microsoft offers through Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server.

Make no mistake: All three of what we consider the most promising smartphone platforms—Android, iOS and Windows Phone—have powerful IDEs that developers like. Android developers build software in Java using Eclipse; iOS developers program in Objective-C with Xcode; Windows developers of all stripes use Visual Studio and languages like C# and Visual Basic.

All three are powerful IDEs, and Eclipse in particular offers a fantastic range of add-ins, add-ons, plug-ins and integrations. But Visual Studio has them all beat.

Not only that, but the for-profit nature of Microsoft’s Visual Studio team lets the company embrace third-party providers in a way that the not-for-profit Eclipse Foundation can’t hope to match. (It doesn’t hurt that Microsoft’s Visual Studio and Windows teams report to the same shareholders, while the Eclipse Foundation, Oracle’s Java Community Process and Google’s Android Developers are three independent organizations.)

We predict that the mobile wars will gel into a three-horse race, at least when it comes to smartphones. (We don’t foresee any significant challenge to the iPad on the tablet front for some time; Microsoft isn’t going there, and Android lacks a clear message.)

• Android will sell more units, in large part due to the broad base of carriers and handset makers, which will drive prices low. And, of course, there’s a new Android phone appearing every week.

Related Search Term(s): Android, iPhone, Java, Microsoft, Oracle, smartphones, Windows Phone

Pages 1 2

Share this link: http://sdt.bz/36104

Most Read Latest News Blog Resources

Android is the focus of two new design tools
Anywhere Software and Xamarin provide ways for developers to create and test their applications on PCs

LEADTOOLS HTML5 add-on modules released
Including New HTML5 Zero Footprint Viewer, JavaScript Libraries and RESTful Web Services for Document and Medical SDKs

How to speed up your Cukes
Using a five-step process derived from Six Sigma, Cucumber tests can go much faster

WhiteSource offers open-source license management as a service
Software gives companies insight into the open-source components in products

SmartBear rolls out new quality solution: API Complete
Software gives organizations ability to write test scripts and monitor APIs by bridging the DevOps divide

Android is the focus of two new design tools
Anywhere Software and Xamarin provide ways for developers to create and test their applications on PCs

WhiteSource offers open-source license management as a service
Software gives companies insight into the open-source components in products

Top five devices you can integrate with your applications
A five-fingered list of common, household items with which you can talk to (via software, of course)

Slick...but who needs it?
compilr.com is a well-designed site and the folks behind it seem to have their heart in the right place. But...who needs it?

How to be a better software developer
Want to be a better developer? You won't get there by mastering an interesting language or learning a new set of APIs.

Wooing Galatea
Do yourself a favor and check out Galatea 2.2, a wonderful book by novelist Richard Powers.

The world as story
An artificial-intelligence system at Carnegie Mellon seeks to understand the world by making statements about it.

Five SCM Best Practices Two-thirds of all software projects fail, according to the Standish Group’s CHAOS study. Improper usage of software configuration management...

Best Practices for Branching and Merging Patterns

Development teams often create a branching pattern, usually drawn out on a white board or in a Visio document, that is used as a model to...

Automated Error Reporting We invite you to read a short e-zine that tells you all about automated error reporting for .NET applications. This 8-page e-zine is packed...

The End of Application Redeploys Imagine that every time you wanted to write, send or receive an email, you needed to restart your computer. How much time would this take, a...

Technorati

Digg

Slashdot

Facebook

Friendfeed

Twitter

del.icio.us

IBM, Microsoft voted best app servers in Evans Data survey In a survey of over 700 developers, WebSphere won out overall, beating Adobe, Apache and Microsoft. Oracle's WebLogic dropped the most places, while SAP's came in last due to incompatibility with non-SAP software.

Zeichick’s Take: BetaCity: Windows Phone, Android, iOS and the shape of the mobile landscape Are these three companies locked in a race? Or are they guaranteed a spot in the market for the forseeable future?

Android, iPad and Windows Phone 7: Place your bets A recent survey shows no clear leader among the trio, as developers are looking for the platform that has the longest reach

Add comment

Name*
Email*
Country

Comment

IBM, Microsoft voted best app servers in Evans Data survey
In a survey of over 700 developers, WebSphere won out overall, beating Adobe, Apache and Microsoft. Oracle's WebLogic dropped the most places, while SAP's came in last due to incompatibility with non-SAP software Read More...

News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>

Download Current Issue
MAY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?

Slick...but who needs it?
compilr.com is a well-designed site and the folks behind it seem to have their heart in the right place. But...who needs it?
05/16/2012 12:45 PM EST

How to be a better software developer
Want to be a better developer? You won't get there by mastering an interesting language or learning a new set of APIs.
05/14/2012 12:18 PM EST

Wooing Galatea
Do yourself a favor and check out Galatea 2.2, a wonderful book by novelist Richard Powers.
05/12/2012 07:05 PM EST

The world as story
An artificial-intelligence system at Carnegie Mellon seeks to understand the world by making statements about it.
05/10/2012 06:39 AM EST

The Rise of the Brogrammer, or the Rise of the Sexist Programmer?
Women in Silicon Valley get vocal about sexist ads and campaigns that contribute to a tense work environment.
05/09/2012 03:14 PM EST

Retriever Communications Releases RADE3
Organizations concerned about the growing popularity of bring your own device to work policies may be comforted by the release of RADE3.
05/09/2012 11:46 AM EST