The war for developers

The post says the mobile market is shaped less by hardware alone than by the programming languages and developer communities behind each platform. It contrasts iOS, Android, and Windows Phone as different technical and cultural worlds, then argues that Microsoft is trying to turn Windows Phone into a more appealing target for developers who came from the PC era.

Reading notes

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• The mobile world is constrained by available developers, but a larger pool has not yet been fully engaged.
• iOS is presented as a closed system rooted in Darwin and Objective C, with a philosophy of completeness and tight control.
• Android is presented as open, extensible, and tied to Linux and Java.
• Windows Phone is described as searching for an identity while trying to attract many kinds of developers through Silverlight, XNA, Visual Basic .NET, and later CLR.
• Apple’s dominance is linked to the developers it attracted first, especially those already familiar with Macintosh software.
• Objective C is said to have frustrated many developers because it differs from other modern languages.
• The rise of Android widened the developer split, but the deeper divide still comes from a shared C lineage.
• A large group of developers was left behind as software moved from desktops to the web, where languages like Java, PHP, and Ruby on Rails became more common.
• Microsoft is said to be offering those developers a chance to enter mobile through Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.
• The main challenge is convincing consumers that PC-era developer expertise still matters on mobile.
• If Microsoft succeeds, the large number of developers it can mobilize could reshape the mobile market.