I think the concern over monotouch has largely gone away but there is still a requirement to know the Apple library calls that do the actual work. Personally I'm working with PhoneGap which is built on top of WebKit, the engine in the Safari browser. WebKit is available on a number of mobile platforms, Windows being one of the exceptions. Being able to develop apps using HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and deploying the same app to multiple mobile devices is compelling. I still work with Windows Mobile and while it is possible to build decent apps it is more difficult than it should be. I have no immediate intention to develop for Phone 7.

Developing for mobiles is something that I've become very interested in late. The bottom line is that you want to go where you can sell your product and Apple's app store provides a fantastic service for developers. The draw of the 50 Million iPhone users was so great that, believe it or not, I even went as far as getting myself an iMac last month (which I proceeded to install dual boot XP on... but I digress).

XCode "really sucks". My first impressions are that it's dragging behind the VB6 IDE, let alone Visual Studio 2010. Anyway - the current state of my project is ASP.Net for the back end (possibly MVC) and Phonegap for the front. I'd really love to code in C# for the mobile platform but there just isn't the supported user base of windows mobile to warrant it!

If you want my two cents worth, I think that MS should get back behind the mono project and get real CLR support on linux. Wouldn't that allow code to be run on Android and Mac OSX? As a language, C# is now far ahead of java (I'm addicted to LINQ) and Visual Studio runs rings around Eclipse (let alone XCode). All that .Net needs is real cross platform support.

.Net totally rocks as does Windows 7, however, as a developer I need to be where the users are!

I'm in full agreement with this blog. I haven't moved forward with smartphone / mobile development because there isn't a critical mass of market demand. When I say "mobile" I can't get a single person to say "Windows", everyone asks about iPhone, Blackberry, and Android. Even Symbian via Java seems to be a relic of the past. Mobile carriers like TMobile and Verizon don't lead with phones based on Windows Mobile / CE, which is both a cause and effect of the lack of consumer interest.

As a devoted .NET (C#) developer I feel disenfranchised. We need Microsoft's weight behind their mobile platform offering but it's simply not there - in part because once again they're in catch-up mode with popular demand and they're just not ready with a competitive offering.

Since the topic has come up, yes, I feel similarly disenfranchised when I create Windows-based communications solutions targeted toward a market with (arguably) 50% *nix-based servers. I constantly struggle with smoothing out the message that our clients must make use of a Windows middle-tier to facilitate comms between their Linux/AIX systems and whatever else they want to connect. We're not subversively helping people to see the value of Windows (the way Linux gained popularity), the requirement for a different server is just a major business hassle. My solution, not shared with Microsoft of course, is to be able to run all .NET assemblies on Linux (and Mac) via Mono - that includes the third-party components on which I rely.

Yeah, we've made our choices, swallowed the Kool-Aid, and bought into the .NET platform, so we get whatever comes with it. I just wish Microsoft would work on endearing themselves to the market of people that they'd like to use their tools for development and daily use. IE continues to be different from other browsers in a way which alienates developers and end-users. Windows Mobile is virtually unknown to cell phone users. Maybe Microsoft doesn't mind being loathed by "the other side" of the market, but those of us who code into their platform and sell related solutions need to deal with that stigma every (sometimes) unprofitable day of our lives.

Excellent blog post, Laila, which sums things up very fairly.  See also Engadget's in-depth review at http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/19/windows-phone-7-in-depth-preview/  which seems to be giving the message that the software is, in places,  almost as good as iPhone's iOS 4!

Laila, your blog post contains a number of inaccuracies. You state that The Kin phone "was based on Silverlight and Windows CE, due to delays with Windows Mobile 7". 'Windows Mobile 7' has not, and will never exist. The successor to Windows Mobile 6.5 is, as we all know, Windows Phone 7. The Kin phone was a disaster, mainly because it offered a feature set that was already 2 years out of date when it was launched and it couldn't run third party apps - but that has nothing to do with it being based on Silverlight and Windows CE, both of which are proven and exciting technologies.

As you say, Windows Mobile's share of the phone market has been in decline for sometime, mainly because Microsoft dropped the ball so spectacularly and failed to invest at a time when Apple and Google were making such advances with their mobile platforms. But I disagree with your statement that smartphones are in decline - you only have to look at Apple's shipments to see the true story there. Sure, top-end smartphones only have a limited market, but I believe you'll see more and more smartphone features turning up in cheaper phones in the coing years.

You say that 'Windows Mobile 7 is due for release in October, but has been dogged by delays'. Firstly it's *Windows Phone 7*, and secondly it has not been dogged by delays. Granted, the original Windows Mobile 7 project had a complete reset about two years back, but since Windows Phone 7 was unveiled at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, Microsoft have kept to a very aggressive schedule culminating in the release of the beta tools two weeks ago, and still on target to launch in October. You also say that 'There have also been alarming rumors that Multitasking, Cut and Paste, and even Silverlight in the browser are out'. These are not rumours, and have never been rumours - they're fact. Yes, some multi-tasking would be nice, and cut and paste, but the restrictions on running more than one third party app at a time is there to ensure the best performance for the phone user. The iPhone only got that capability in it's most recent release, and I'm sure that Windows Phone will get something similar in an update pretty soon. As for not having Silverlight in the browser - well i can live with that. Being able to use Silverlight to create great looking apps that run out of browser is just fantastic  - believe me as someone who has tried to create apps that look as good as iPhone apps using Windows Forms on Windows Mobile, these new tools are a godsend. You shouldn't put too much emphasis on running apps in browser - the immediate future for mobile is not in the cloud, as many commentators suggest - perhaps in a few years when continued investments by network operators mean that high bandwidth mobile networks become the reality and not the promise that they are today.

Believe me, Windows Phone 7 is a serious investment by Microsoft. I have a developer phone and the user experience with this phone is first class. More importantly, the developer experience is first class. This will be a winner.

Lastly, you shouldn't give oxygen to the rant in the "Windows Phone 7: Don't Bother with this Disaster" blog post. For a reasoned response by Mark Arteaga, please read this post: http://blog.markarteaga.com/WillWindowsPhone7Succeed.aspx