Microsoft Gazes Longingly At iPhone Developers

Earlier this week, the blog Pocketgamer.biz reported that Microsoft is offering "substantial" amounts of money to iPhone game developers to get them to port their apps to Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft is now in the process of putting together a list of popular iPhone apps that it wants to see brought over to Windows Phone 7, and it plans to have that list finalized sometime in mid-July, one source familiar with the matter told CRN Friday. That timeframe is also when Microsoft is expected to finish work on Windows Phone 7 and start distributing Windows Phone 7 devices to select developers.

Microsoft's courting of iPhone developers is certainly understandable: Its various mobile app marketplaces haven't come close to matching the energy that exists around Apple's App Store, and with Windows Phone 7 devices due this holiday season, Microsoft needs to have a critical mass of popular apps ready for purchase when they arrive.

But given the vast differences that exist between the iPhone and Windows Phone 7 development platforms, and the amount of work involved in porting apps from Objective-C to Silverlight and XNA, Microsoft may find it difficult to attract iPhone developers.

"Porting is not trivial. C# and Silverlight have very little in common with Objective-C and Cocoa Touch," said Scott Stanfield, CEO of Vertigo Software, a Richmond, Calif.-based Microsoft partner.

Vertigo has deep in-house expertise with Silverlight and Expression Blend, and it's using this to port a few iPhone apps to Windows Phone 7 right now, although Stanfield notes that these are rewrites that don’t leverage all of what Windows Phone 7 has to offer.

"You want a reinterpretation to take advantage of the unique features of Windows Phone 7, such as panorama and pivot controls," said Stanfield. "It's like a film adaptation if a book: same vision, different implementation."

Chris De Herrera, a Los Angeles-based Microsoft Windows Mobile MVP and editor of the Pocket PC FAQ blog, says iPhone developers will have hard costs to convert to Windows Phone 7 due to the differences between the platforms. "There are also differences in the skill sets to code for the different platforms, which will also require training," he said.

Developers who’ve been making money hand over fist with iPhone apps would love to extend their reach to Windows Phone 7, but Microsoft is either going to have to find a way to make it easier for them to do so, or up the ante in terms of how much it's willing to pay them to port their apps.