Why Would you Want to Write Applications for Windows 8 Now?

by Michael Crump's Blog | Comments 37

Introduction

Last week, we had our first Windows 8 webinar titled, “Why build for Windows 8 and how RadControls for Metro can help.” One question that we attempted to answer is, “Why build for Windows 8 now?” “Why not wait until a future date when the platform is more stable?” These questions are valid from a consumer and an enterprise point-of-view and I’ll try to explain why we believe that you should start writing applications for Windows 8 today.

 

4 Solid Reasons to Start Building Today

Reason #1: You are building for the next generation of the most popular operating system in the world (which is Microsoft Windows)

Let me begin with this quote from ZDNet, “If there are 600 million copies of Windows 7 in use, and this represents 40 percent of the market, then simple arithmetic says the installed base is now 1.5 billion machines. The vast majority of them -- 92.53 percent or 1.4 billion -- run Microsoft Windows.” [source]

While we do not know how many copies of Windows 8 will be sold, we do know that Windows 7 is the best-selling operating system in history, and Windows 8 is its successor. Windows 8 also allows you to have the best of two worlds. You can choose between the classic “Desktop” mode or the new “Metro” mode. You can still run the same applications on Windows 8 that you can run on Windows 7. You still have your preferred method of input, whether it be mouse/keyboard or touch-screen devices. In other words, nothing was removed, but features were added.

Microsoft is investing heavily in the operating system and while it may take some time to catch on, you can get a head start by working with it today.

Reason #2: There is no denying that the age of the slate / tablet PC is here right now.

We’ve been hearing it since 2010, your next PC will be some sort of slate or tablet device.

Times have changed, we used to be stuck to our office desk because we were using a Desktop computer and if we wanted to “work from home” that meant either physically brining the box to your home (hopefully, you wouldn’t do this), adding files to a USB thumb drive or connecting via VPN.

Then came the laptop, finally we could take our work with us anywhere we wanted. The main issues that came with laptops were that they were originally heavy and could not match the specs of a powerful desktop PC. You could pretty much forget replacing a part if it failed. As time went by, laptops became smaller and lightweight but not everyone wants to drag a laptop around to watch a movie or do some basic internet surfing.

This is where we started seeing devices such as the iPad take off. The iPad was a phenomenal success and we expect the same for the recently announced Microsoft Surface slates. Windows 8 was built touch-first, meaning they are expecting users to be using the Operating System with such devices.

Reason #3: You can write your application in a language that you already know.

More than likely if you are reading this blog then you have probably done some .NET development at some point in your career. Windows 8 presents developers with the opportunity to build Metro-style applications using the language of their choice: HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3, or XAML with C# , Visual Basic or Visual C++.

So what language do you choose?

I think Jesse Liberty put it best here when he says, “Microsoft’s guidelines are to go with what you know – if you are already a XAML programmer, by all means invest in XAML for Windows 8. If you already are a JavaScript programmer, then follow Javascript to Windows 8. The folks who I know who are doing both say they are more productive with XAML, but of course HTML5 and JavaScript are very hot technologies right now.”

Reason #4: You can sell your application easily in the Windows Store or deploy it to your enterprise.

“First to Market” – is a very popular phrase meaning that you have the advantage of being the first person in an ever expanding marketplace. The Windows Store makes your application available to millions of customers with minimal effort on your part. You package your application and upload it in a similar manner as you did with Windows Phone 7. You set the price and what markets you want your application distributed to, and Microsoft does the rest.

Microsoft also has deployment strategies for Enterprise customers who wish to deploy their application internally but not make it available to everyone else in the Windows Store. These types of applications frees enterprises with worries of security breaches, as the application can only be downloaded by selected individuals.

 

Wrap-Up

Thanks for reading and I hope that you have a clearer understanding of why building for Windows 8 at this stage is very important. I’d also suggest that you watch the recorded webinar to see exactly what Telerik has in store for Windows 8. You may also download RadControls for Metro here.

I’ve said this in all of my blog post so far, but I am always open to any type of feedback that you may have. Telerik is driven by customer feedback. So, feel free to reply to this post or send me a tweet.

About the author

Michael Crump - XAML RockStar!

Michael Crump

is a Microsoft MVP, INETA Community Champion, and an author of several .NET Framework eBooks. He speaks at a variety of conferences and has written dozens of articles on .NET development. He works at Telerik with a focus on our XAML control suite. You can follow him on Twitter at @mbcrump or keep up with his various blogs by visiting his Telerik Blog or his Personal Blog.

37 Comments

Jens
Why ?
I think 0 Reasons
And a lot again. :)
Jay
5) You want to be part of an OS flop that will make Vista look like the most successful release of all time.
Dan

Microsoft has made it clear through their actions, that they wish to become a consumer focused company, and in the process are abandoning their long term customers who provided LOB applications with their tools. Just look at each of the new initiatives they are rolling out – it’s clear to me.

It is also clear to the IT management of the organisation I work for, who are no longer using Microsoft technologies for application development on new projects.

BTW it’s not a small company, and we have purchased a few copies of ultimate Studio as well as Test Studio. Kendo is a move in the right direction, as I know a lot of people moving into HTML5. And I don’t mean the fake approach Microsoft is touting to incite the script-kiddies to produce Metro apps. I doubt if they will be fooled.

hatezmetro
[quote]You can choose between the classic “Desktop” mode or the new “Metro” mode. [/quote]
This statement is utterly false. The choices are not mutually exclusive. You can choose to use "Metro", or you can use "Desktop" while using "Metro".
Bill
Jay: it's Windows.  The question could have been asked a different way: why wouldn't you want to keep on writing those apps you've been writing for the last 20 years and continue to leverage all that investment?
For many, the advent of Windows 8 is the opportunity modify the skin of their app to take advantage of touch. (You did listen to all those lectures on the separation of concerns and decoupling the business processes from the UI, right?).  Oh, and if it's a .NET application, have it run on an ARM chip as well.
 Even if comparatively few (compared to the Windows based but still vast compared to any other OS) copies of Windows 8 are sold it's a new market with new opportunities.
Jaasiel
Nice !! I agree is a good idea to start working on win apps!
Flapz
Why won't microsoft lose there urge to combine the tablet and pc in one... It will fail horribly!
Let me define it in code then we will all understand the problem (C-code):

unsigned char tabletOS = 0xFF;

  unsigned char personalComputerOS = 0x01;

  unsigned char success = (tabletOS + personalComputerOS);

  if(success)

    printf("Windows 8 rules!");

  else

    printf("MS goes down the drain.");


Flapz
The previous didn't come out as well:
Why won't microsoft lose there urge to combine the tablet and pc in one... It will fail horribly!
Let me define it in code then we will all understand the problem (C-code):
unsigned char tabletOS = 0xFF;
unsigned char personalComputerOS = 0x01;
if(tabletOS + personalComputerOS)
  printf("Windows 8 rules!");
else
  printf("MS goes down the drain.");
Michael Crump
@Dan I respect your opinion on the matter, but I don't see MS turning into a consumer-only focused company. I was at the MVP Summit and TechEd 2012 and this was not the message that I heard. Just check out the Enterprise sessions at TechEd 2012. Heck, even Silverlight has a 10 year support cycle left. I believe that in certain scenarios SL is still the best choice for a LOB application. 
 @hatezmetro I apologize if you took that as meaning mutually exclusive. I was simply stating that a "Desktop" mode exist while running Windows 8 Metro. 
Flapz
@"Michal Crump" Be serious, Silverlight (SL) was released 5 years ago and they are already dumping the technology. What sucker is going to take it and develop software with it?
Jack
Sorry to disagree, but it seems blindingly obvious to me that Windows 8 will fail big-time because of Metro on the desktop. Microsoft seems utterly hell-bent on alienating it's user base and it's developer base at the expense of trying to be an also-ran in the tablet war (which they should have easily won a few years ago). As a developer my time is precious - why should I waste my time learning new development techniques on something that will clearly flop? While I know that many good people work at MS the senior management have totally derailed the company (seen the new Vanity Fair article?) and unless they get some fresh blood in at the top (Ballmer and Sinofsky particularly) then MS will die an undignified but rapid death.
And that makes me angry - they were are fun and inspiring company to be associated with for the past 24 years of my career. 
Flapz
@Jack I totally agree, just looking around: of all the people that were windows users over 80% have changed to Mac or Linux.
Just to go further on that, blocking computers to only be able to use windows on a device won't make developers happy (people like me) who like to use many operating systems... I use BeOS, Windows, Mac and Linux mostly combined on the same devices non of my computers are single boot... If you block me in installing an extra OS I will show you my middle finger and take my followers with me (every techguy/girl has people that follow him in his opinion being direct family, friends, coworkers ...)
Dan
"...just looking around: of all the people that were windows users over 80% have changed to Mac or Linux"
HAH!  I love when people pull stats out of thin air, happens all the time.  Haters will hate, Windows will continue to dominate - deal with it.  I actually designed a metro-style start page in my browser years ago for personal use - why?  Tiles/images are faster to digest, metro makes sense and all the anti-change types will quietly stop hating in the coming years.
Michael Crump
@Flapz : I personally see all sorts of government contracts and non-government contracts continuing to use SL. These are internal applications and fit the skillset of their current developers. What are these companies supposed to do? Scratch a SL project they have invested 3 years in and replace the current developers with HTML5/JS ones? 
Adam R
I'll consider using Windows 8 when there's an option to utterly and completely disable Metro. 
Robert J. Good

Flop, I seriously doubt it. Its new and different, people love playing with something new.There are 3.5 million machines running Windows 8 for daily use...and its not even out.
Expect Windows 8 users to be in the hundreds of millions by Q1 2013. In case math is not your thing...that means more Win 8 machines than iPhone users within just a few months...a year at the outside.
Flapz
@Dan We all know this is a war, but just look around in colleges and universities, Windows is losing terrain each year.
Flapz
I know this is a MS sponsored site (look at the ads), so I will get a lot of heat... Don't really care about the discussion... As state earlier, I use many OS'es.
@"Robert J. Good" Ok, then lets beat windows again: lets count all the cellphones out there that don't run a kind of windows, wow MS is beaten! Your comparison isn't really super :-) If you want to go and do a cellphonewar: look at how great MS has been to Nokia, I just love the Lumia devices!
Jaime Bula
I wrote apps in Silverlight, I'm not going that road again. No even seeing reasons to develop for windows anymore.
Blame on you if you trick me once, blame on me if you trick me twice.
Jaime Bula
And also no willing no enroll on the "Framework of the Month" Club.
Jaime Bula
@Flapz I totally agree. No metro style apps are going to come from my company.
whoFlappincares
@Flapz - "Don't really care about the discussion..."
Then why should anybody else care about what you say? If you need a monologue platform, build one yourself, and leave other people's blogs for people interested in Dialog, or make your comment and then move on. But contributing six entries in less than a day and then essentially saying "Lalalalala-Ican'thearyou-Idon'tcare-lalalala..." is just solipsistic and rude. 
Jack
Robert J Good: You wonder if maths is my thing and then you go and pull figures out of the air like that. Your argument is a case of "Reductio Ad Absurdum" if ever I saw one!
Dan: Speaking for myself, I'm not an anti-change type. I have - to varying degrees - loved every prior version of Windows since v2. I was really happy with the new look of 95 and then also XP, I actually liked the look of Vista (but was pleased when SP1 came out), and I really love Win 7 despite a couple of persistent bugs that no SP or update ever seems to fix. I also think that Metro is appropriate (but dull) for tablets. I just think it is a nonsense on a desktop environment, and I also think the corporates are going to be royally-pissed about the amount of user retraining required for 1000s of people just to do basic things like shut down windows (which is in no way intuitive in W8 without somebody initially showing you).
I understand that some people like Metro, I really do. I just think that MS are forcing together two different interfaces purely as a result of their own urgent panic about having lost the tablet war, rather than a coherent evolution into something new with a consistent interface throughout.
Jamie Bula: Yep, same here. I have hundreds of customers of my software all around the world and although I shouldn't provide general Windows support for them I often-times do. They are not IT-professionals, just "ordinary" people who use my software program and many struggle to simply find their way around Windows Explorer, even with me trying to guide them. The loss of the Start button is really going to cause confusion, and I feel that to save myself many frustrating hours of increased support I will have to write to all my customers and *advise* them that if they are going to buy a new PC/laptop to make sure it has W7 on it (but I won't go so far as to say W8 is an unsupported platform). I know my customers, and I am 100% confident that those customers who don't remember my advice after a few months and do go ahead and buy a W8 PC are going to be frustrated to tears. I can say that with confidence because I know them.
Anonymous Coward

My reasons _not_ to develop for any MS platform:

1. The OS looses importance, as HTML5 apps take over, so both users and vendors will be less bound to MS's Office suite which only runs on Windows - you do your mail in the browser nowadays, and spend more time on facebook than in Word.

2. The best and most popular browsers, at the moment are _not_ MS products. I don't think this one needs any explanation.

3. MS has proven, over the last maybe 10 years, that its APIs and standards are always pretty short-lived, when compared to other technologies. Its proprietary network protocol died, Silverlight is being killed, nobody nowadays remembers DCOM. That doesn't make me want to invest into .Net.

4. IT Professionals spend more and more on their time writing server-side code or managing servers - determined by the advent of web apps. Using different OSes on desktops and servers is costly and painful. Windows on the server, except for dedicated roles as a ADDC, is seldomly used - most enterprise app servers run something Java-based on Linux or Solaris, and if they are bigger, they go with HP-UX or some IBM version of Unix. Both OSX and Linux are closer to those server OSes than Windows, and thus more convenient for professionals. And all those professionals advertise the use of Linux on private desktops and laptops.

Jack
Robert J Good: You wonder if maths is my thing and then you go and pull figures out of the air like that. Your argument is a case of "Reductio Ad Absurdum" if ever I saw one!
Dan: Speaking for myself, I'm not an anti-change type. I have - to varying degrees - loved every prior version of Windows since v2. I was really happy with the new look of 95 and then also XP, I actually liked the look of Vista (but was pleased when SP1 came out), and I really love Win 7 despite a couple of persistent bugs that no SP or update ever seems to fix. I also think that Metro is appropriate (but dull) for tablets. I just think it is a nonsense on a desktop environment, and I also think the corporates are going to be royally-pissed about the amount of user retraining required for 1000s of people just to do basic things like shut down windows (which is in no way intuitive in W8 without somebody initially showing you).
I understand that some people like Metro, I really do. I just think that MS are forcing together two different interfaces purely as a result of their own urgent panic about having lost the tablet war, rather than a coherent evolution into something new with a consistent interface throughout.
Jamie Bula: Yep, same here. I have hundreds of customers of my software all around the world and although I shouldn't provide general Windows support for them I often-times do. They are not IT-professionals, just "ordinary" people who use my software program and many struggle to simply find their way around Windows Explorer, even with me trying to guide them. The loss of the Start button is really going to cause confusion, and I feel that to save myself many frustrating hours of increased support I will have to write to all my customers and *advise* them that if they are going to buy a new PC/laptop to make sure it has W7 on it (but I won't go so far as to say W8 is an unsupported platform). I know my customers, and I am 100% confident that those customers who don't remember my advice after a few months and do go ahead and buy a W8 PC are going to be frustrated to tears. I can say that with confidence because I know them.
Jack
Sorry about the multiple instances of my posting there, don't think I did anything to cause it. Michael Crump, can you delete the superfluous ones?
Salty
Michael, is Telerik eating their own dog food then? Are they planning to sell products through Microsoft's app store and give up a quarter to a third of their revenue? This forced control and revenue split is _the_ most annoying thing about Metro. Control and extortion in the name of security ... what a joke. (There are much easier and open ways to prevent malware if it was really about security.) That's why it's not worth developing for Windows 8 and instead of sticking with Windows 7 desktop with tablet development moved to Android.
Norom
@Jack: You are not at an error. Multiple postings are triggered by refreshing the page aftrer postings. Quite an old bug in their CMS.
On Silverlight: It's not a 5-year-old technology. Up to 4.0 it was a big joke of a technology. SL 4 was released Nov 18, 2009. At BUILD 2011 (Sept 14th) MS discontinued Sliverlight. In short, it is really an almost-2-year-old technology. 

The existence of many internal corporate and governmental projects is bogus claim for me. There are no metrics about it, are there? Almost all fortune 500 companies use iPhones and iPads (and that's not pulled out of thin air). Tell me how do they develop Silverlight applications that DO NOT run on the iPads and iPhones. Oh, and Silverlight does not run on Android either. And RIM as well. Actually, Silverlight does not run on Windows Phone 7 either - and that is simply hilarious.
Now, what's that you were saying?
Jens
No One Need Phones and Tabletts for Real programs.
Robert J. Good
Numbers...
* 3.5 million people using Win 8 daily came from 2 different microsoft employees.
* 125 million active iPhone users came from Gartner.
* 600 million Windows 7 licenses from Steve Balmer. It's actually 700 million, due to unpaid licenses (msdn, non-authentic copies, etc.)
* 1.5 billion total daily windows users. From the same 2 microsoft employees.
400+ million Windows 8 users is a no-brainer estimate, given more PCs than that will sell in the next year.
This is a sure bet. Ive already written 2 metro apps.
Michael Crump
@Jack : It has been deleted. 
@Salty: Telerik is working on multiple apps for the Windows Store. The financial application should be the first in the marketplace along with the Tasks application and the sample QSF's. I know several employees that are also building Windows 8 apps (some ad-driven others to sell for $1.49) So, yes we are building our own apps. 
@Norom : I began working with SL2 and found SL3 a very capable solution for web applications. I respectively disagree with your comment that it was a big joke until 4.0. I would also argue that MS discontinued SL after Build. SL5 was released in December (which was after build). Again, we have a 10-year support backed by MS. 
I'm sorry that you feel the existance of internal corporate and government project is bogus. I have no way of providing evidence of the clients that I have (and am currently) working with. You could probably do some searches on simplyhired for a taste of who is looking for SL developers. 
Brett
With HTML5 not locked down until 2020+ and browsers already adding browser specific tags, what shap will it be in by the time it is finalized? Having worked in Silverlight since SL2, there is still no shortage of companies, including large banks using it. Why, because it looks clean and style the same in all browsers. Metro is the next progression. Why should we write an app and the 10 different styling to suit ever browser whim out there only to find it breaks in the next release. Metro defines a clean visual standard that allows a designer & developer to create an application to looks and function on all supported devices. I notice too the comment about Microsoft taking a large share of the revenue, obviously that person has never sold software on the open market: SEO fees, Merchant Fees, Advertising, Payroll etc. I will quite happly give them 25% cut and come out significantly infront and focus my time on developing the next app. People love it of hate it, but you can bet Microsoft will push it hard, so I know which wagon, I'm jumping on. You can be a developer and work cutting edge, or find a nice government job writing Cobol and Java.
Norom
@Bratt and @Michael: All I hear about Silverlight is how large banks and corporations use the software, and bla-bla-bla. Problem is, especially about banks, I am pretty well aware how resistant to change they are and how suspicious are to new technology. So, some people might believe you how they embraced Silverlight, I don't.
On HTML5 - it is going pretty well, and most browsers are very fast to adopt the new features (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera), and I don't care about IE. All those extensions actually exist for quite some time since the standard is still incomplete on the specific topics.
@Brat: I am not entirely sure why you think that if one does not develop for MS/Metro, then they develop on Cobol. I see nothing wrong programming in HTML5 Java, Objective-C, C++, C, even Assembler. In fact, since I write on all of the above, including C#, SL/WPF (no Metro for me), I find it pretty annoying to be lectured by short-sighted, self-righteous individuals.
Bryan Johns
I disagree with #2.  Slates/Tablets are not going to replace a real desktop PC for content creation.  Touch screens are far too expensive for the average home user, plus they really don't make much sense on a desktop anyway.
Some high end laptops are on par with desktop machines and might make viable desktop replacements.  However, such laptops are still prohibitively expensive for the average user and adding touch screens will only make them more so.
I will likely be installing Win8 on my machines.  I'll start out by installing it on my little Atom powered netbook.  It should benefit from the perf improvements that Win8 brings.  I will, of course, make a full backup image of the current Win7 Pro installation and if the Win8 experience without a touch screen isn't at least equal to that of Win7 I'll restore the backup and stick with Win7 as long as possible.
A.R.
LOL a vendor of metro-style dev tools gives us his unbiased opinion regarding why we must start developing metro-style applications ASAP. Spot the flaw. Besides that the already mentioned major pain is MS's cut on every sales, and the risk to see an application rejected for some reason, something that the developer will only learn AFTER he has completed the application development and full testing (without beta testers as applications can not be sideloaded on normal Windows installations). Who will take that risk, besides for toy apps like the next flashlight or fart app of the month? No one in his right mind will invest (potentially) millions of $ in r&d to develop an application that he may never be able to sell because it does not meet some guideline-of-the-day.
C++Coder

The Microsoft Store is a smoke and mirror thing: companies with lots of money to spend to promote their product will buy their own application in large quantities (tens of thousands of copies if necessary!) just to make it float in the top 10 or whatever, while others will pay Microsoft directly to have their application featured. All in all there is 0% chance that an application written by a typical ISV get any more exposure than what can be achieve by the usual means (ads, SEO, etc). At the end the ISV will continue to promote his ware as of today, except that he'll now redirect his potential customers to the Store, which takes a 25% tax (or 35% if your volume is small) = less money in the ISV's pocket. All this, of course, assuming he did not go into bankruptcy because his app was rejected and never saw the light of day. If that happens you are toast because your shiny new WinRT-based code is only good for the trashcan, if someone at Microsoft decides he does not like your application. And who wants to go through the full approval process and ask permission to Microsoft before releasing any and all hotfixes and patches, no matter how small? Hell will freeze before my living and revenue stream depends on WinRT-based code sold through the Microsoft Store. That said, everything I’ve seen so far on the Metro-style side of things are silly games and toy apps with almost laughable functionality.

Wilson
Are there also deployment strategies for customers who do not wish to make their application available to anyone else period?
Microsoft needs to make all cloud features available to be hosted on an own Windows server. That bold new vision of installing your own apps through someone else, managing your computers through someone else etc is a security nightmare. 

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