Microsoft’s effort to Usurp Android (Microsoft ‘Apps Everywhere’ Strategy Further Threatens Google Control of Android) continues and according to this article in ZDNet, Microsoft will release a developers environment to easily port both android apps and iOS apps onto the Windows 10 platform:
“At its Build conference this week, Microsoft dropped a bombshell: Windows 10 will run Android and iOS apps. Whether or not that’s a good idea is a highly debatable topic. On the one hand, it will close any real or perceived mobile app gap but on the other hand, it could discourage programmers to make native Windows apps.
Either way, it’s an impressive and ambitious undertaking. Called Project Astoria, the Universal Windows Platform Bridge tool is advertised at letting developers re-use much of their code from other mobile platforms. And after watching this video demonstration of how it works for Android apps, it appears that Microsoft is making it as easy as possible.”
The operation of Astoria appears straightforward:
“The toolkit also identifies what changes will need to be made to an existing app for another platform if a developer wants to port it to Windows. Dragging the current Android or iOS code into the Universal Windows Platform Bridge toolkit causes some preliminary analysis to take place and guide developers to what code requires tweaking.
This brief video only shows a high level look, of course, and the devil’s in the details. Once Project Astoria goes widespread — it’s currently in a limited developer preview — I’d be curious to hear from Android and iOS programmers if they plan to use it, and if so, how much of the heavy lifting Microsoft has done to ease the transition.”
Mercator is also interested in hearing from Android and iOS payment providers to determine their interest in porting payment related apps to Windows 10. Payment apps will certainly be harder to port due to the security implementations the apps are tightly coupled with, but this tooll should certainly make it easier to convert Windows 10 into an mPOS like device.
This announcement is important to payments because this approach should enable the Microsoft platform to more easily integrate into the mPOS infrastructure. This will help Microsoft remain relevant as a POS and may enable Microsoft to influence the direction of mPOS architectures.
Microsoft is by far the most popular OS running on PC’s and Laptop’s today, the Microsoft browser remains widely used, and a large percentage of web sites are run using Windows server. When Microsoft decides to get serious about owning a segment of the market it must be taken seriously and the earlier a decision is made to support Microsoft’s efforts the more market share you may be able to gain as well.
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
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