Microsoft tunes Windows Azure cloud for developers

Microsoft continues to position its Windows Azure cloud platform as a place for software developers, adding services on Thursday for mobile and Web development.

At its Build 2013 developer conference in San Francisco, the company announced general availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services, for creating mobile back-end application capabilities, and Windows Azure Web Sites, for building and managing "business-grade" Web applications. Mobile Services offers native SDKs for Windows Store, Windows Phone, Google Android, Apple iOS, HTML5, and REST APIs, while Web Sites supports such languages and frameworks as ASP.Net, PHP, Node.js, and Python. Web Sites also offers such features as load balancing and source control.

The natural symmetry between the cloud and developers was noted by Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president in the Microsoft Developer and Tools Business: "Certainly, one of our constituents in terms of customers that use it is certainly developers." Microsoft has focused on tooling and APIs for Azure with developers in mind. The company also is forging close ties between its Visual Studio IDE and Azure, Guthrie acknowledged. Visual Studio 2013, offered in a preview form on Thursday, offers stronger capablities for deployment right to Azure, including debugging and code editing.

Build also featured a preview of application access enhancements for Windows Azure Active Directory, providing single sign-on to cloud applications. In addition, Microsoft previewed Azure's Auto Scale capability for scaling applications. "It's a really great feature that allows you to dynamically scale up or scale down your apps and services when you're hosted in the cloud," Guthrie said.

Microsoft's cloud accommodations for developers are akin to what Google has been doing on its own Google App Engine platform. Google provides for building and hosting Web applications on App Engine, with access to multiple services, scalability, and backing for different programming languages. Thursday's moves in the cloud application space follow up another Microsoft move onto Google turf, as the company expanded its Bing search platform, which could rival what Google is doing with its own vaunted search technology.

This story, "Microsoft tunes Windows Azure cloud for developers," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

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Developers ramping up for Microsoft Windows Store apps

Developers are showing interest in building Windows Store (formerly Metro) applications with tablet-style functionality, but the platform is still in its early stages as far as building a base of apps.

Metro, a name that is no longer supposed to be used because of a trademark conflict, was introduced two years ago. Now, Microsoft is referring to these apps as Windows Store apps, bearing the Modern UI interface, complete with Microsoft's live tiles for accessing functionality. "We're just doing our first Metro Windows 8 commercial application," said Jeff Torkington, CEO of retailer software developer Ontempo.

Microsoft cites about 100,000 Windows Store apps, which would pale in comparison to the more than 975,000 Android apps in the Google Play store and the estimated 850,000 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch apps in Apple's App Store. But Windows 8.1 looks like it will be a more appealing platform for users, which should boost Windows Store application development, said Wes Miller, analyst at Directions on Microsoft. "In general, the navigation is better," in version 8.1, he said. "Microsoft has made some of the right changes with [Windows 8.1]. It could be an interesting holiday season for sure." Microsoft has just begun offering a preview of Windows 8.1.

Microsoft also is leveraging XAML to try to make development easier, Miller said. Previously, the company focused on Web languages like HTML5 and JavaScript. "[With] their XAML architecture, they've got a lot better story on how you would build an app for Windows 8."

Developers thus far are giving the Windows Store application style mixed reviews. New to the Windows Store application experience, Kristofer Linnestjerna, a developer at NetClean Technologies, said he found himself confused by the platform when he took a look at it. He noted how different it is from the desktop. "It's made for touch," he noted.

Developer Robert Keiser, owner of Row Five Information Systems, has done some Windows Store app development. "It's very easy. The only problem that I have is if you program for the tablets, you have to rewrite some of the code, some of the front end, to make it work on the phone."

While developer Martin Bennedik, a freelancer in Frankfurt, Germany, has developed some Windows Store apps, he has not seen much interest in the platform from his clients so far. "They're just waiting to see where this is going." But Microsoft is making the application development process better for Windows Store, he said.

At the Achmea insurance company, developer Tom van de Meent has not built any apps for Windows Store yet but anticipates a need in the future. Thus far, there he has only seen "a little" interest in Windows Store apps from customers, he said.

This story, "Developers ramping up for Microsoft Windows Store apps," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

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Build 2013: Microsoft renews its relationship with developers

Microsoft is more than an operating system company. It's a platform company.

That's the overall message from its Build developer conference this week. And if it's going to remain a platform company, it needs to keep developers on its side. With much of the developer messaging over the last year focusing on the new WinRT runtime at the heart of Windows 8, it's no wonder that many developers -- especially those building enterprise Windows applications -- were feeling a little left out. Build 2013 was Microsoft's chance to reconnect with those developers and to showcase new tools, technologies, and roadmaps.

[ Also on CITEworld: Here Are The Top-Rated Enterprise Apps In Google's Store | Stay on top of CITE: Subscribe to the InCITE newsletter. ]

Making WinRT more palatable -- and less central
WinRT remains an important part of Microsoft's developer story. It's the foundation for creating Windows Store apps, and it's where much of Microsoft's API attention remains focused. That's not a bad thing -- it's designed for the next generation of app development and for building smart endpoints for cloud-hosted services.

Even so, there's renewed focus on .Net. It's the heart of the server and cloud story, and if WinRT is about building endpoints for devices, .Net is about building services in the cloud and in the data center (and also for desktop apps).

So where did WinRT fall down over its first year? Firstly, it was designed to work with a limited set of use cases. That, combined with its strong sandbox, meant it was hard to build apps that worked together, and there were limited tools for connecting to external hardware and for displaying built-in help.

The Windows 8.1 refresh of WinRT begins to fix many of those issues, with improved tooling for handling communication with external devices (including Bluetooth connections, and for working with a range of USB inputs and outputs). It also introduces the concept of child security domains, which will allow applications from the same developer to communicate across the walls of the Windows 8 sandbox without using Microsoft's built-in contracts. Contracts remain the key to allowing communication between apps, giving users the ability to construct their own workflows between apps from many different developers.

Getting the evangelists out there
New features in WinRT are all very well and fine, but developer engagement is key to Microsoft's future. Recent changes at the top of its developer evangelism team are a hopeful sign, as are admissions that the company has failed to encourage developers to use technologies like Portable Class Libraries (a way of encapsulating common code so that it can be used across WinRT, desktop and server .Net, Windows Phone, and Web services).

Build put the evangelism team front and center, publishing email addresses and Twitter handles and showing demonstrations of how new tools and services would work in developers' own applications, not just in Microsoft's.

Another interesting note: This was the third Build conference, but the first to be held in the San Francisco Bay Area -- the heart of Google and Apple territory. (Prior to Build, Microsoft held a similar event called the PDC or Professional Developers Conference; the last time it was held in the Bay Area was 1996.) While Microsoft says it was a decision made around available space and hotel capacity, the choice of venue could also speak to the fact that Microsoft knows it needs to reach the large base of developers who are intrigued with -- and building for -- Android and iOS. Certainly Microsoft went out its way to show more than its own Visual Studio IDE, with cross-platform development tools like Xamarin used in many presentations, and keynotes showed Git being used to manage iOS code generated by the Azure mobile services platform.

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