Zeichick’s Take: Hurricane Sandy can’t stop the tech from Microsoft and Google

By Alan Zeichick

November 2, 2012 — (Page 1 of 2)
It takes a lot to push the U.S. elections off the television screen, but Hurricane Sandy managed the trick. We would like to express our sympathies to those affected by the storm; too many lives were lost, homes and property destroyed, businesses closed.

Microsoft and Google had scheduled two tech events for the week of Oct. 29. Build took place as scheduled on the Microsoft campus in Redmond. Google cancelled its New York City launch event and offered its products rollouts via blog.

The big Microsoft news was the release of Windows Phone 8, with handsets from HTC, Nokia and Samsung set to go on sale starting in November. This follows, of course, the rollout of Windows 8 and the Surface with Windows RT ARM-based notebook/tablet device on Oct. 26.

Everyone that I talked to who has used a prelease Windows Phone 8 has been impressed. (I have a Windows Phone 7.5 device, and find the Live Tile apps to be very usable and exciting. I look forward to installing Windows Phone 7.8 on it.) Through a strong program of incentives for app developers, there are many flagship apps for the phone already.

There are three compelling messages Windows Phone developers:

• You can use Visual Studio and familiar tools to build apps for Windows Phone 8.

• Windows Phone 8 is almost identical to Windows 8, so there’s a minimal learning curve.

• Windows Phone 8 is a reboot of the platform, which means you’ll face few competitors in the app store (called Windows Phone Store).

Of course, the downside is:

• The installed base of Windows Phone 8 is nonexistent, compared to gazillions of iOS, Android and even BlackBerry OS.

If I were an entrepreneurial mobile app developer, I’d give Windows Phone 8 a try.

Google’s news is much more incremental: More hardware and a minor rev of Android.

The new hardware, announced in the Google Official Blog, is a new phone called the Nexus 4 and a 10-inch tablet called the Nexus 10. The big tablet has 2560x1600 display—that’s the same resolution as many 27-inch desktop monitors, and I’d love to see one.

Related Search Term(s): Google, Microsoft, Sandy

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