Up until last week, there were five major mobile operating systems: Android, iOS, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry and webOS. With the wounding of webOS, there are now four. The two top players being Android and iOS. And Microsoft wants at least the bronze medal.
HP is ending development of webOS for tablets and smartphones, so what's are webOS developers supposed to do if they really love coding, the mobile scene and are looking for a job? Accept free incentives such as smartphones, dev tools and training, courtesy of Microsoft. All you have to do is pledge your allegiance to
.
Windows Phone 7 director Brandon tweeted his webOS developer call last Friday:
To Any Published WebOS Devs: We'll give you what you need to be successful on #WindowsPhone, incl.free phones, dev tools, and training, etc.
So far, the response seems to be overwhelmingly positive. Nearly 1,000 emails were sent over to Watson requesting positions. HP's official stance might be that it will still support and update webOS, but in what form that'll be, it's uncertain.
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Meanwhile, Microsoft is getting serious about its Windows Phone 7 again and knows that it needs more than its upcoming Mango update to persuade consumers WP7 is a platform worth trying, let alone buying into.
Grabbing as many talented webOS developers from HP's sinking ship is a smart move for Microsoft. Perhaps we'll see some worthy apps and features that would have been implemented in webOS shifted over to WP7. The world needs a third player that isn't relying only on Nokia for strong hardware. The software is the core to a platform. Reeling in more help can't hurt WP7's chances at grabbing a bigger slice of the smartphone pie, seeing as how the one major thing hurting WP7 is its puny portfolio of decent apps.
WP Central, via BGR
