<marquee><h1>Microsoft pitches Windows Mobile to iPhone developers</h1></marquee>

A recent case study posted in Microsoft’s developer site tells how one programmer ported his iPhone app over to Windows Mobile. It’s the logical next step in the campaign to woo the hearts and minds of mobile developers away from Apple’s iPhone platform. Or more likely, it’s hoped to be the way of getting Windows developers now writing for iPhone to give Windows Mobile another try. “Dude, we’re over here! Remember us?”
Perhaps Redmond can hire sign wavers to stand on the corner with signs shaped like giant hands, the ones that you see pointing to condo developments that aren’t sellin. Microsoft could set up offices in vacant strip malls, so the sign wavers could direct developers to attend seminars on the benefits of Windows Mobile 6.5 and the forthcoming Windows Marketplace, which no doubt will be everything that Apple’s App Store ain’t.
Go for it!
The case study at Windows Mobile Developer Center tells how engineer Luke Thompson at Gripwire.com ported Amplitude to Windows Mobile. According to the report, he was able to get his app to run on a HTC Touch Pro phone with a build of Windows Mobile 6.5.
For the Macphiles and their Windows counterparts [do the latter love Windows or just hate the Mac, I wonder?], the discussion is all about “only” apps, or programs that only run on either iPhone OS or Windows Mobile. This is a very unrealistic and unbusinesslike attitude.
Of course, developers will seek new customers for their products on different platforms. While they will look at the market picture for earch OS and its hardware platforms as well as the business case for the respective stores, developers will have another important question to answer: How many IDEs will they and can they take on to produce small, low cost applications?
This will be a concern especially for small developers. Certainly, they will want Xcode for the iPhone — after all, this case study is about porting to Windows Mobile from the Apple platform. Apple is currently the mindshare leader. But what will be the next target? Windows Mobile? If you’re into Eclipse, Google Chrome? Or Maven 2 for Cydia packages.
A Mac developer in the mobile space who declined attribution predicted that “iPhone and Android will pretty much kill Windows Mobile in the next couple of years.”