Microsoft Adds Visual Basic Support To Windows Phone 7
Microsoft made the Visual Basic for Windows Phone Developer Tools available Sunday through the Microsoft Download Center. The release lets Visual Basic developers create Silverlight applications for Windows Phone 7 using the final version of the Windows Phone Developer Tools.
The new Visual Basic add-on tools require Visual Studio 2010 Professional, Premium or Ultimate edition, according to the system requirements, and do not support Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone.
The new tools ultimately could result in a wider selection of applications for smartphones that use Windows Phone 7. Currently there are only 2,930 applications available for Windows Phone 7, according to WP7applist.com, which tracks Windows Phone 7 applications and provides links to application reviews.
That's in contrast to the thousands of applications available for the Apple iPhone (more than 300,000 on the App Store Web site) and devices using Google's Android mobile operating system, a major reason those products have been so successful.
Microsoft has not disclosed Windows Phone 7 sales since the first devices using the operating system became available Nov. 8. But there's anecdotal evidence they are slow sellers. A story on the Inquirer Web site quotes a spokesperson for Mobilesplease.co.uk, an online mobile phone seller, as saying that Windows Phone 7 devices account for only 3 percent of smartphone sales .