After HP made the announcement on Thursday they would be scrapping their webOS operating system and some of it's hardware, including the struggling Touchpad, Microsoft's Senior Director of WP7 development Brandon Watson made it clear via twitter that all previous webOS devs would receive all that is necessary to make a successful switch to Windows Phone.
"Any Published WebOS Devs: We’ll give you what you need to be successful on #WindowsPhone, incl.free phones, dev tools, and training, etc.," he said on Friday.
Watson has been extremely active recruiting of late using social networking to further Windows Phone's collective cause, which heated up in January when Microsoft began handing out ASUS WP7's to jailbreakers from the ChevronWP7 team a few months after they released an "unlock" tool that allowed users to side load their own applications.
The process continued in April when Microsoft Europe tweeted US President Barack Obama and offered to send him a WP7 after he complained about the lack of 'cool' technology in the Oval Office.
Recently, Watson made a $1k bet with Scott Adam, author of the comic strip 'Dilbert', and followed up with a similar challenge to CNET blogger Molly Wood, who was unsatisfied with her Android device. Both received handsets with a pre-release version of the Mango update.
Most recently, after Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin complained that his iPhone was frozen, Watson offered one to Blake and his brother Taylor earlier this week.
Back in May, he even offered his personal phone number in hope that developers would call him with any questions or feedback.
All of this comes within a week of the release of the new Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit add-on, which contains additional tools and controls to help devs build better apps. The sudden halt of webOS development coupled with the discontinuation of HP's TouchPad leaves a gaping vacuum to be filled in the mobile app development market that Microsoft is aiming to fill swiftly.
Windows Phone Marketplace has already grown to 30,000 apps and production is expected to spike in the coming months with the introduction of several more hardware manufacturers beginning production on WP7 devices, such as Nokia and Fujitsu, as well as additional handsets from Samsung and HTC.
You can follow Brandon Watson on twitter here @BrandonWatson.
"Any Published WebOS Devs: We’ll give you what you need to be successful on #WindowsPhone, incl.free phones, dev tools, and training, etc.," he said on Friday.
Watson has been extremely active recruiting of late using social networking to further Windows Phone's collective cause, which heated up in January when Microsoft began handing out ASUS WP7's to jailbreakers from the ChevronWP7 team a few months after they released an "unlock" tool that allowed users to side load their own applications.
The process continued in April when Microsoft Europe tweeted US President Barack Obama and offered to send him a WP7 after he complained about the lack of 'cool' technology in the Oval Office.
Recently, Watson made a $1k bet with Scott Adam, author of the comic strip 'Dilbert', and followed up with a similar challenge to CNET blogger Molly Wood, who was unsatisfied with her Android device. Both received handsets with a pre-release version of the Mango update.
Most recently, after Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin complained that his iPhone was frozen, Watson offered one to Blake and his brother Taylor earlier this week.
Back in May, he even offered his personal phone number in hope that developers would call him with any questions or feedback.
All of this comes within a week of the release of the new Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit add-on, which contains additional tools and controls to help devs build better apps. The sudden halt of webOS development coupled with the discontinuation of HP's TouchPad leaves a gaping vacuum to be filled in the mobile app development market that Microsoft is aiming to fill swiftly.
Windows Phone Marketplace has already grown to 30,000 apps and production is expected to spike in the coming months with the introduction of several more hardware manufacturers beginning production on WP7 devices, such as Nokia and Fujitsu, as well as additional handsets from Samsung and HTC.
You can follow Brandon Watson on twitter here @BrandonWatson.
