Microsoft needs to pay attention to RIM in regards to developers

So RIM seems to have figured out a good way to get developers to port their apps to BB10. Yes BB10 is close to android from a development prospective, but I really think they've done a great job incentivizing. To that extent, how do you all think MS should encourage more growth of quality apps? My idea is this:

1. Make submitting apps free for the rest of 2013, including the tools necessary to build them.
2. Change the marketplace to hide 1-2 star apps unless the end user requests to see them. (setting a review threshold that apps have to receive before filters kick in.)
3. Change the marketplace to really promote 4-5 star high quality apps.
4. Set a monetary pay off system. i.e. If you have an app that stays 4 stars for x-months, give a bonus. Make it a scale so that developers will want to keep adding value to an app.
5. Fix their own apps. FB, Photosynth, etc.


Any other ideas?

Here here. I suspect that now that MS has an OS they could develop with, developers will make it happen.

Add to that extra bonuses for making cross platform apps. Wp7.5/8, WP8, Win 8 RT, Win 8. Or porting from iOS/Android.

it is now they should gain some momentum. They have a great platform that just needs a little more content.

Those sound like ok ideas, but time will tell whether any of these ideas help bb get anywhere with their new OS.
Sent from my Lumia 920 using Board Express

RIM was giving away $100 for porting an app to BB10. Of course they're going to get a lot of apps like that, but they're mostly all going to be garbage apps that don't actually take much effort to port. We already have that kind of garbage in the Windows Phone store, what we need is the quality stuff.

MS did do a massive giveaway at //build/ and there were a lot of developers there. Watched the keynote Ballmer got up on stage and did his usual lively performance - if i remember right every developer there got a free lumia 920 a free surface rt, massive boost to skydrive storage and a reduction on signing up as a windows 8 developer. Thats around $1000 of incentives for developers that were there. How much more do they need?

I like really like idea #4. Although Microsoft could just agree to take a smaller cut of those apps earnings, say 10% instead of 30%.

As much as I like your ideas though, they won't do much to address the problems you've mentioned.

The main thing BB10 has going for it is code compatibility with Android. If you can port your android app to BB10 in five days, why not do it. Porting an app to WP requires months and months of work, and burdens the development team with an entirely separate code base to support, update and maintain, which usually implies hiring more devs... as long as app sales can't pay for those additional developers, incentives from MS are irrelevant.

Nevertheless, I do like your ideas. If I worked at MS I would act on them.

meh. MS shouldn't just go for the quantity they need to go for the quality.

They need to go big name guys like Instagram and say "hey we will give you software, hardware, staff, money etc as long as you develop an app for Windows 8, WP8 and Xbox 360 which utilize the entire API suite"

We will advertise your app on TV and give you 100% support its a Win/Win situation

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Originally Posted by based_graham

They need to go big name guys like Instagram and say "hey we will give you software, hardware, staff, money etc as long as you develop an app for Windows 8, WP8 and Xbox 360 which utilize the entire API suite"

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This will not work. This approach makes Microsoft the customer, not the consumer. If Instagram is developed in that way, the resulting app will meet MS' minimal requirements so as to allow the company to cash MS' check, but that is all.

To many consumers, such an app will serve mainly as proof, that WP apps can't reach iOS quality standards.

The app developer must be hungry for app sales in the marketplace, not for a paycheck from MS.

Im still surprised they havent got 343 industries working on a halo based game. The fact that they havent even updated the atlus on waypoint to pick up Halo 4 maps is shocking, even more shocking that the waypoint app for halo 4 just points to the website and isnt a dedicated app. If MS cant even get one of their own software developers to do something for WP8 then why should any of the other big developers.

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Originally Posted by a5cent

This will not work. This approach makes Microsoft the customer, not the consumer. If Instagram is developed in that way, the resulting app will meet MS' minimal requirements so as to allow the company to cash MS' check, but that is all.

To many consumers, such an app will serve mainly as proof, that WP apps can't reach iOS quality standards.

The app developer must be hungry for app sales in the marketplace, not for a paycheck from MS.

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IMO it's legit. MS needs to pay developers who will attract people into the platform. It's like how they paid game developers to develop exclusive titles for the Xbox same deal.

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Originally Posted by based_graham

IMO it's legit. MS needs to pay developers who will attract people into the platform. It's like how they paid game developers to develop exclusive titles for the Xbox same deal.

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I see your point, but disagree.

Porting Instagram is only about playing catch-up. It's about saying "me too". It provides no reason to choose a windows phone over any other, even if it is just as good as the original... 9 out of 10 times though, ports are worse, which risks enforcing a perception of WP that already exists. This isn't great, while still costing MS hundreds of thousands of dollars. MS can't win the catch-up game... they can only choose to stop playing it, or lose.

However, providing AAA titles EXCLUSIVELY to WP carries none of those risks while offering many more benefits. Want to play multiplayer Madden NFL, Halo or Farcry on your mobile device? ... only available on WP ... That is a much stronger sales pitch. That is about reversing the dynamics.

Microsoft will be doing the later. They won't completely stop financing ports, but to a much lesser extent then they have been.

It's not a question of whether to throw money at the problem, but where exactly to throw it.

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Originally Posted by a5cent

I see your point, but disagree.

Porting Instagram is only about playing catch-up. It's about saying "me too". It provides no reason to choose a windows phone over any other, even if it is just as good as the original... 9 out of 10 times though, ports are worse, which risks enforcing a perception of WP that already exists. This isn't great, while still costing MS hundreds of thousands of dollars. MS can't win the catch-up game... they can only choose to stop playing it, or lose.

However, providing AAA titles EXCLUSIVELY to WP carries none of those risks while offering many more benefits. Want to play multiplayer Madden NFL, Halo or Farcry on your mobile device? ... only available on WP ... That is a much stronger sales pitch. That is about reversing the dynamics.

Microsoft will be doing the later. They won't completely stop financing ports, but to a much lesser extent then they have been.

It's not a question of whether to throw money at the problem, but where exactly to throw it.

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It's not paying money for a port. It's paying Instagram money to make an exclusive Windows app that scales on 3 different screens. A completely different Instragram experience using Windows products then you can use that to market your phone.

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Originally Posted by based_graham

It's not paying money for a port. It's paying Instagram money to make an exclusive Windows app that scales on 3 different screens. A completely different Instragram experience using Windows products then you can use that to market your phone.

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Well, that certainly is a little different from the basic instagram port most people seem to be asking for. You might have a point, although I feel the suggestion needs to be fleshed out a lot more before I could form an opinion on it. I still suspect that not much will change without addressing the root problem though:

Paying a company, to release an app into a market that company has no interest in competing in, will rarely result in a great app.

Those companies do not develop those subsidized apps in the hopes of profiting from sales to the WP community. For those companies, it's not about passion, sales, quality, or even customer satisfaction. It's about meeting Microsoft's stated project goals and cashing their check. Even in the best case scenario, where the WP community does get an equally good app, WP users will rightly start complaining as soon as the next wave of iOS and Android updates roles around, which will inevitably include brand new functionality that was never mentioned as part of deal with Microsoft.

It's an entirely different situation than the console wars:

During Microsoft's XBOX initiative, they didn't pay developers to develop for the XBOX. Most console game developers already wanted to develop for and compete in the XBOX market. Microsoft only had to pay for exclusivity (which wasn't that hard a sell since the PS2 was a pain to develop for).

I hate Blackberry and never liked it but i must say that bb10 will have the good apps with the best version!!.Was shocked when Viber announced VoIP for BB10 and gave them an exact date, while for MS we just know its "coming soon". How soon, who really knows! We should wait and wait for the apps to come.. i dont mind waiting but i want to feel that MS is doing hard to please its customers, Yet I understand that Google is attacking MS while BB10 wil have access to all of there apps. Its a bad movie from google seems google and MS will not get along at all. MS should push hard, work hard support developers and yet focus on one OS or two but not 3!

Developers can act like real whores sometimes. Good devs won't flock to the platform of the day for a quick hit of cash, but I've seen plenty that do. You know them, they are the apps in the marketplace that were updated maybe once or twice and then they orphaned the app while continuing to develop for ios or android.

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Originally Posted by inteller

Developers can act like real whores sometimes. Good devs won't flock to the platform of the day for a quick hit of cash, but I've seen plenty that do. You know them, they are the apps in the marketplace that were updated maybe once or twice and then they orphaned the app while continuing to develop for ios or android.

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yea, I don't know how to develop apps and all that, but if I did, I would want my app available on all platforms, updates and all. We are talking about "developers" ....... Isn't that their job?

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Originally Posted by irvin792

yea, I don't know how to develop apps and all that, but if I did, I would want my app available on all platforms, updates and all. We are talking about "developers" ....... Isn't that their job?

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Their job is to earn money for their employers (some may be self employed) or to streamline the process of doing so.

If you were a developer, I'm absolutely sure you wouldn't choose to support any arbitrary platform either, or at least you wouldn't if you also had to worry about putting food on the table.

the type of developer you describe is what I refer to. They have no concept of common architectures and function points to economically support multiple platforms without doing it with quick hit handouts from sugar daddy providers like Microsoft or RIM. So they cry poor and support the "popular" platforms....where their app can join the literally 100s of thousands of apps that are never downloaded.

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Originally Posted by a5cent

Their job is to earn money for their employers (some may be self employed) or to streamline the process of doing so.

If you were a developer, I'm absolutely sure you wouldn't choose to support any arbitrary platform either, or at least you wouldn't if you also had to worry about putting food on the table.

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I don't think Windows Phone is an arbitrary platform, as from what I understand its pretty simple to make your app windows8/RT/windows phone compatible, so your hitting 3 markets pretty easily.

/shrug

But your probably right as I have no idea how to code.

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Originally Posted by inteller

the type of developer you describe is what I refer to. They have no concept of common architectures and function points to economically support multiple platforms without doing it with quick hit handouts from sugar daddy providers like Microsoft or RIM. So they cry poor and support the "popular" platforms....where their app can join the literally 100s of thousands of apps that are never downloaded.

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yea, win8/rt/wp are markets ripe for the pickins!

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Originally Posted by irvin792

I don't think Windows Phone is an arbitrary platform, as from what I understand its pretty simple to make your app windows8/RT/windows phone compatible, so your hitting 3 markets pretty easily.

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I agree with you on that one. In this thread we were talking about porting between OS', like BB10, Android and WP, so my statements are only relevant to that topic...

Ports between WRT and WP8 are a different topic entirely.

A question... What makes it a better choice to develop for WP than say Symbian, Tizen or Jolla? Surely you would say market share, and I would agree, but to the bean counters they are all the same. If the estimated WP sales don't surpass estimated development costs, no developer will get permission to bring it to WP. To the bean counters, choosing any one of them over an other seems arbitrary...

Wouldnt it be cool if MS released some big name apps around the 30th of Jan? :)

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Originally Posted by inteller

the type of developer you describe is what I refer to. They have no concept of common architectures and function points to economically support multiple platforms.

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That criticism is probably fair to a degree. On the other hand, multiplatform capabilities weren't on anybodies minds when the platforms were developed (with the exception of RIM). Different OS features, different programing languages, different UI concepts and guidelines... all those things make it extremely difficult to abstract away the differences as you suggest.

Im fairly certain that in most cases, developing a multiplatform foundation is likely more expensive than just rewriting the entire app, not to mention the maintenance costs such code would incur by having to keep up with OS developments on iOS, Android and WP.

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Originally Posted by a5cent

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However, providing AAA titles EXCLUSIVELY to WP carries none of those risks while offering many more benefits. Want to play multiplayer Madden NFL, Halo or Farcry on your mobile device? ... only available on WP ... That is a much stronger sales pitch. That is about reversing the dynamics.

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THIS. makes so much sense.