Developer March

OFF THE PRESS

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WHITE PAPERS

Hot and Safe: a Beginner's Guide to Multithreaded Libraries Most of the discussion of multithreading that emerges from Cilk Arts is...

8 Simple Rules for Designing Threaded Applications Multithreaded programming is still more art than science. This white paper...

Maximizing Digital Media Application Performance using Intel® Integrated Performance Primitives in Microsoft* .NET* Environment Microsoft .NET framework's interoperability mechanisms can be used to create...

EXCLUSIVES

Microsoft Stages Comeback to Mobile Game with Windows Phone Series 7

Microsoft has overhauled the design of its mobile operating system, done away with the moniker 'Window Mobile', and launched Windows Phone Series 7. The new platform effectively scraps Windows Mobile 6.x with a completely revamped user interface and more tightly defined integration with devices and networks. With this launch Microsoft intends to reclaim the market share they have been consistently losing to Google’s Android, RIM, the iPhone OS and Symbian.

Up until the release of the open Android platform, Microsoft was considered as a sizable competitor against Nokia’s Symbian. When Android was launched in 2007, Microsoft was pushed into the back seat and has been struggling to retain leadership position ever since. Handset manufacturers have also been increasingly adopting competing operating systems, especially Android. Samsung recently announced it would launch five new smartphones powered by Android this year, in addition to five other handsets fitted with Samsung's own Bada operating system and a just handful with Microsoft's platform. With the Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft is hoping to win back the interest of handset device makers that shifted away from the Windows Mobile series.

At the press conference announcing Windows Phone 7, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, "We knew we needed and wanted to do things that were out of the box, that were clearly differentiated from our past and hopefully from other [offerings] in the market."

Windows Phone 7 is a complete departure from previous Windows Mobile operating systems, focusing more closely on social-networking capabilities, real-time information, and organising contacts and data in to single “hubs” to make it easier to keep in touch. The mobile operating system is heavily focused on social networking and integrates with Microsoft’s other platforms, namely Zune and Xbox Live. Zune’s interface will be a direct port for the stand-alone players, while Live will provide profiles, avatars and Live games. Notable feature include:

People hub: allows one-click interaction with people in a user’s contact book, as well as a live stream of Twitter, Facebook updates from friends and information from server locations likes Microsoft Exchange
Pictures hub: pulls together recently synchronised or recently taken photos, and pictures pulled from social networking sites and other webservices like Flickr
Games hub: brings Xbox Live games to a mobile device for the first time. With this integration users will be able to download and play games through Microsoft’s online store – Xbox Live Marketplace
Music+Video hub: includes Zune software which will allows users to sync and play content downloaded through the Zune marketplace store. This will also include a built-in FM radio and Zune Social to share music recommendations with other users
Marketplace hub: gives users access to Microsoft’s downloadable third party applications and games. It will also allow individual programmers to upload applications onto the app store. This rectifies what Microsoft’s mobile platform has been criticized most for. Unlike most smartphone platforms Microsoft’s platform has always been released by different sets of mobile manufacturers and developers always had to release multiple versions of the applications to ensure compatibility with different hardware architectures. This also led to the extreme popularity of the iPhone App store.
Office hub: this comes as quite a surprise, a paradox actually. Joe Belfiore, VP of Windows Phone, said it was time to stop thinking about mobile phones like PCs. “A phone is not a PC, it’s a smaller, more intimate device,” he said. “Too many phones are made to look like PCs. We wanted to come up with a user design that was different, that moved beyond the metaphor of the PC.” The Office hub contains productivity tools such as Office, OneNote, and SharePoint workspace thereby enabling users to edit, read and share documents. How users will accept these tools and use their small screens to edit documents of any importance remains to be seen.

Watch the video that talks about WP7's features:

Ballmer reckons that the company won't be replacing Windows Phone 6.5 just yet; instead, there will be a period of overlap between Microsoft's two mobile operating systems.

Handset Manufacturers Display Windows Love

Manufacturers have already begun building phones featuring Windows Phone 7 Series with plans for release by the 2010 holiday season, according to Microsoft. Manufacturers on board include Dell, Garmin, Asus, HTC, Hewlett-Packard, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba. Carrier partners include AT&T, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, and Vodafone.

HTC chief executive Peter Chou said "We're very busy working with Microsoft at the moment, and we're looking to deliver [a Windows Phone 7 Series mobile] later this year, which is very exciting."

Microsoft Next Set to Launch Own Phone

Microsoft has not officially disclosed any plans of releasing an in-house handset but Devmarch has covered speculations around Microsoft’s Project Pink. Pink is a top secret project operating independently from Windows Mobile, with the intent of directly challenging the iPhone. With Microsoft's radical launch of the WP7 platform the Windows phone, if and when it launches, will stand a better chance in the mobile market.

VIDEOS

JavaScript for the C# Developer With the proliferation of thin-client web applications, sooner or later every C# programmer will likely have to write some JavaScript. What could go wrong? After all, it's just another...

PODCAST&VIDEOS

.Net Collections Deep Dive The .NET framework provides a rich set of collection classes, crafted to help you address a multitude of tasks. But, let’s face it, we rarely use this vast array to the scope that...

Caring about Code Quality We all have seen our share of bad code. We certainly have come across some good code as well. What are the characteristics of good code? How can we identify those? What practices can...

Design Patterns for .NET Programmers Between lambda expressions in C# and functional programming in F#, we can now make use of patterns well beyond those popularized by the so called GOF. In this presentation we will learn...

Stepping into the Near Future of the IDE Ever wonder what it might be like to write code in the future? DevExpress’ Mark Miller will explore trends in tools & human interfaces and preview interesting & exciting...

Quality First - Building Quality Into Your Application Throughout the Lifecycle Application quality is often considered as an afterthought and put off until late in the application lifecycle. To consistently deliver high quality products, quality should be...

The Entire Game Should Move Onto the GPU, says Rev Lebaredian As the computing functionality and horsepower of GPUs has grown over the last few years, the role of the GPU is rapidly expanding to game tasks beyond rasterization-based graphics. Now...