Polar Mobile to develop 500 new apps for Windows Phone 7
Microsoft seems to be hitting the ground running, swinging and body-checking in all directions. With the spectacular failure of its Windows Mobile and "Kin" marring the company's stock prospects in a recent Goldman Sachs report, the Windows Phone 7 seems to be its renewed attempt to win a share of the coveted smartphone market from rivals Google, Apple and RIM.
Rake in the fact that many smartphone users now pick and choose between operating systems on the basis of the number of apps and content available, and the importance of Microsoft's newly-inked deal with Polar Mobile Inc. becomes a ready reckoning.
Toronto-based Polar Mobile Inc. has been contracted to create 500 new apps for the Windows Phone 7 mobile OS, including all 350 of its current applications designed for the iPhone, Android phones and BlackBerrys. One of the single largest app-development deals in Canadian history, this allows Microsoft to release the Windows Phone 7 this November with a sizeable number of apps for consumers to factor into their buying decision.
With the majority of app developers lovingly hand-crafting apps not unlike the cobblers of old delicately crafting shoes, Polar Mobile stands apart in its use of templated app development, where clients fill in details of apps into standardized forms which are soon used to mechanically churn out large numbers of apps. This scalability ensures that the Polar Mobile-Microsoft partnership fits in the same league as the Microsoft-Facebook partnership - old and new recombine symbiotically to create something entirely new, experimental and possibly disruptive.
While apps for the iPhone and Google Android phones number in the thousands, Microsoft's attempts to clawback long-lost market share coupled with initial positive reviews of its new smartphone stand to give it a fighting chance in a smartphone war that has just gotten more ferocious.
What's your take on this whole affair dear reader? Is this partnership premature or possibly a winner?
