Android on Windows = Suicide?
I don't think so. But a lot of people do. Funny thing is, many of these people have watched the market evolve and know damn well that the world of today is not the world of 20 years ago in the tech industry. Yes, it is absolutely true... if Android apps run perfectly well on Windows Phone, why develop a Windows Phone native app? You won't. It truly is that simple. At least,
it is unless Windows Phone turns it around becomes more dominant than Android. In fact, the move may actually pull XAML/C# devs to the Android dev side of things.
Years ago this would have been suicide.
Years ago, all the popular platform had to do was obsolete the work you had just done.
Technically, the same is true today. Effectively, however is another story. Neither Apple nor Google has rapidly deprecated API support since the first iPhone. Why? Killing off the bulk of your app store which may kill off the bulk of your user base just to stick it to a minor competitor is insane.
Sure, over time Google and Apple may slowly introduce new API's and deprecate old ones, also slowly. Hell, both actually do this. But new API's take time to get sufficient adoption to kill off old ones leaving someone like Microsoft plenty of time to adapt to the changes.
20 years ago computer systems changed rapidly enough that you couldn't tell when someone was changing as a natural course of business or changing to screw someone over. Today, neither of the 2 top dogs can afford to break a sizeable portion of their app stores in a rapid enough fashion to succeed in both crippling MS's efforts and not run a massive risk with their own businesses.
And, if the tactic works out for Microsoft and people actually do make use of these "bridge" solutions, and those solutions become profitable and viable for the developers you may find developers pushing back against Apple and Google to not break support. If it has the consumer impact Microsoft hopes for then it is possible that the tables could turn even.
Honest predictions though... some big names will do the work and maybe some mid sized companies. I don't expect a sizeable number of smaller dev shops to move.
Big companies can afford it, but many may already have partnerships or agreements with Microsoft's customer base. Gaming companies, especially ones with successful free to play models will likely move. But app developers are a different beast and that will be the one to watch.
Mid sized companies and smaller devs will likely be skeptical about the amount of effort and ROI unless they see a value in the platform or think success in one platform will help make them successful on another. Even if it is as easy or easier than advertised I expect most won't even take an honest look at the tools. Developers tend to have strong opinions and if your dev team didn't push for MS in the past, they are likely to push against it now and if you're too small you can't afford to hire extra hands or alienate your current staff.
The real question is, will enough of the key big and medium players make the move that it will give the platform a fighting chance? That still seems like a possibility. Not a given, just possible.
Another prediction. These ported Android and iOS apps will eventually run on the desktop and HoloLens flavor of Windows 10 as well despite only being on the phones at first. I say this because that 1 billion devices they kept talking about all running the same OS is only that big if it includes traditional computers and that big number will be a big part of persuading developers to use their "bridge" solutions.
Now what I want from Microsoft is for those "bridge" solutions to be bi-directional :) I want to use XAML/C# to write iOS and Android apps.
it is unless Windows Phone turns it around becomes more dominant than Android. In fact, the move may actually pull XAML/C# devs to the Android dev side of things.
Years ago this would have been suicide.
Years ago, all the popular platform had to do was obsolete the work you had just done.
Technically, the same is true today. Effectively, however is another story. Neither Apple nor Google has rapidly deprecated API support since the first iPhone. Why? Killing off the bulk of your app store which may kill off the bulk of your user base just to stick it to a minor competitor is insane.
Sure, over time Google and Apple may slowly introduce new API's and deprecate old ones, also slowly. Hell, both actually do this. But new API's take time to get sufficient adoption to kill off old ones leaving someone like Microsoft plenty of time to adapt to the changes.
20 years ago computer systems changed rapidly enough that you couldn't tell when someone was changing as a natural course of business or changing to screw someone over. Today, neither of the 2 top dogs can afford to break a sizeable portion of their app stores in a rapid enough fashion to succeed in both crippling MS's efforts and not run a massive risk with their own businesses.
And, if the tactic works out for Microsoft and people actually do make use of these "bridge" solutions, and those solutions become profitable and viable for the developers you may find developers pushing back against Apple and Google to not break support. If it has the consumer impact Microsoft hopes for then it is possible that the tables could turn even.
Honest predictions though... some big names will do the work and maybe some mid sized companies. I don't expect a sizeable number of smaller dev shops to move.
Big companies can afford it, but many may already have partnerships or agreements with Microsoft's customer base. Gaming companies, especially ones with successful free to play models will likely move. But app developers are a different beast and that will be the one to watch.
Mid sized companies and smaller devs will likely be skeptical about the amount of effort and ROI unless they see a value in the platform or think success in one platform will help make them successful on another. Even if it is as easy or easier than advertised I expect most won't even take an honest look at the tools. Developers tend to have strong opinions and if your dev team didn't push for MS in the past, they are likely to push against it now and if you're too small you can't afford to hire extra hands or alienate your current staff.
The real question is, will enough of the key big and medium players make the move that it will give the platform a fighting chance? That still seems like a possibility. Not a given, just possible.
Another prediction. These ported Android and iOS apps will eventually run on the desktop and HoloLens flavor of Windows 10 as well despite only being on the phones at first. I say this because that 1 billion devices they kept talking about all running the same OS is only that big if it includes traditional computers and that big number will be a big part of persuading developers to use their "bridge" solutions.
Now what I want from Microsoft is for those "bridge" solutions to be bi-directional :) I want to use XAML/C# to write iOS and Android apps.
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