Microsoft may suck at life but they understand developers
Yes, giving away free laptops to developers is desperation. But it's the same desperation every platform vendor should be feeling.
Mobile
24 Nov 2009
Last week, my friend Mike Downey (who now works at Microsoft) tweeted:
Wow - can't believe we are giving away free laptops to all paid PDC attendees! Very cool! #pdc09
Why, hello there! I couldn't help but notice you smiling at me across the room. Oh, you're a mobile platform?
How interesting.
Yes, I actually lined up yesterday at 7.30am in front of the O2 store on Western Road.
Yes, after enduring my current hacked iPhone for close to a year at GPRS speeds, I was craving the promised 3G broadband speeds. The built-in GPS wouldn't hurt either.
Yes, I had no clue that I was setting myself up for a tremendous disappointment.
As a Flash developer, I'm happy whenever anyone licenses anything Flash for any purpose whatsoever. It strengthens a platform that I love developing for. However, the news that Microsoft has licensed Flash Lite for its Windows Mobile phones doesn't excite me too greatly.
Flash Lite definitely has its place on mobile phones but that place is not to play back web-based Flash content. Flash Lite plays back Flash Lite content specifically created for phones and other devices like the Chumby. The best uses of it that I've seen are to build interface elements and other apps that integrate into the phone's operating system. Flash Lite cuts down development and testing time (and thus costs and time-to-market) considerably for such use cases.
Heading to Amsterdam for the FITC conference this weekend? Make sure you grab Thomas Joos's mobile conference guide on your FlashLite 2-enabled phone.