Free phones

[Crivens]

Seen this?
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/webos-devs-microsoft-offers-free-phones-and-training-for-windows-phone-7/6386

Hmm. Don't have time at the minute (at work) to look into more. Anyone want to have a better look and update us?

Also, Gernot, still no chance of Windows 7 phone compilation?

Might just try and get one anyway if it's free...

Cheers

[okee]

There's more info on the twitter account
https://twitter.com/#!/BrandonWatson

Need to send him an email.

[Crivens]

Hmm. Nice one. I've never really used Twitter so it looks like a load of answers to unseen questions to me. Do you need to login to see all threads?

Any idea on the email address? It says ThePhone@microsoft on the Twitter page and I've found brwatson [AT] microsoft on his own website (Many niches).

Cheers

[Ian Price]

I contacted him on Saturday and got a response yesterday. Here it is in full -

Dear Ian (email address),

First things first. Thank you so much for reaching out to the Windows Phone team to signal your interest in bringing your talents to our platform. To be honest, we didn't expect this level of response, so we were caught a bit flatfooted. It took a few days (on the weekend) to pull all the mails together into one place to allow me to respond in a smart way and not retype every mail by hand.  Consider this a first step in building a relationship with the Windows Phone team.  We are psyched to have you aboard and to see what your imagination can do on the Windows Phone canvas.

- Brandon Watson

ThePhone@microsoft.com

+1-425-985-5568

Getting Started With Windows Phone

First things first.  Thank you so much for reaching out to the Windows Phone team to signal your interest in bringing your talents to our platform.  To be honest, we didn't expect this level of response, so we were caught a bit flatfooted.  To avoid retyping the same mail over and over again, we spent the extra time to load the mails into our CRM system so we could ensure we were following up with each of you.

Here are some of the common questions we have received: Where do you get the tools?  What is the App Hub?  How do you submit apps?  Where can I get a phone?

We pulled together a set of links to get you going on your path.  You will find that content in a table at the bottom of the mail.  It should get you well on your way, and we have a great community of MVP support, which can be found on the App Hub forums, or on Twitter (#wpdev is the hashtag).

Insofar as training, we have arranged to have a 2 day, live, streamed training event about how to build apps for Windows Phone.  It is coming up this week.

Registration: http://bit.ly/Mango-Jump

It's important to note that while this will be delivered live and streamed, but that we will also be posting the recorded version of the videos online shortly after the completion of the training event.

Students

If you are a student developer, your best first stop is to contact Ben Lower on our team.  He is spearheading the academic efforts for Windows Phone.  His email is PhoneNinja@microsoft.com and his twitter is @BenLower.

Mobile Champs

Our mobile champs are our developer evangelists in your area.  They are empowered to do whatever it takes to make you successful.  They will have invites to in person Windows Phone training events, access to coding resources, will be able to introduce you to our marketing programs once your apps are in Marketplace, and they have phones and tokens for App Hub accounts (if cost of an account is a hardship).  Here's the list of champs

Country
Mobile Champ & Email

Australia
Chris Bright Chris.Bright@microsoft.com

Dave Glover (DPE MELBOURNE) dglover@microsoft.com

Austria
Andreas Schabus Andreas.Schabus@microsoft.com

Max Knor Max.Knor@microsoft.com

Belgium
Katrien De Graeve Katrien.DeGraeve@microsoft.com

David Hernie dhernie@microsoft.com

Brazil
Silvia Valadares silviav@microsoft.com

Caio Chaves Garcez caiog@microsoft.com

Canada
Paul Laberge paul.laberge@microsoft.com

Joey DeVilla joey.devilla@microsoft.com

Chile
Wilson Pais wilson.pais@microsoft.com

China
Liwei Zhao liweiz@microsoft.com

Felix Yan Felix.Yan@microsoft.com

Simon Duan simon.duan@microsoft.com

Czech Republic
Filip Rehorik Filip.Rehorik@microsoft.com

Columbia
Walter Novoa (Adecco) v-wnovoa@microsoft.com

Ricardo Marulanda ricardo.marulanda@microsoft.com

Denmark
Bjarne Dollerup Bjarne.Dollerup@microsoft.com

Finland
Jukka Wallasvaara Jukka.Wallasvaara@microsoft.com

France
Antoine Markarian antoinem@microsoft.com

Pierre Cauchois pierreca@microsoft.com

Alex Danvy Alex.Danvy@microsoft.com

Germany
Frank Prengel Frank.Prengel@microsoft.com

Bernhard Carli bernhard.carli@microsoft.com

Greece
Gina Tiriakidou ginati@microsoft.com

Hong Kong
Andy Cheung (HK DPE) ancheung@microsoft.com

Hungary
Zsolt Batorfi zbatorfi@microsoft.com

India
Girish C Joshi girishcj@microsoft.com

Indonesia
Irving Hutagalung irving.hutagalung@microsoft.com

Ireland
Dave Northey daven@microsoft.com

Italy
Roberto Cavallini Roberto.Cavallini@microsoft.com

Lorenzo Barbieri Lorenzo.Barbieri@microsoft.com

Japan
Shinobu Takahashi Shinobu.Takahashi@microsoft.com

Akira Onishi aonishi@microsoft.com

Korea
Jinho Seo jinho.seo@microsoft.com

Kyoung Yoon Kim kykim@microsoft.com

Malaysia
Hoong Fai Lai lai.hoongfai@microsoft.com

Mexico
Edgar Omar Aviles Rosas Omar.Aviles@microsoft.com

Netherlands
Matthijs Hoekstra Matthijs.Hoekstra@microsoft.com

New Zealand
Nigel Parker nigel.parker@microsoft.com

Mike Zeff mike.zeff@microsoft.com

Norway
Petri Tapio Wilhelmsen petwil@microsoft.com

Philippines
Zandra Nicolas alnichol@microsoft.com

Poland
Bartlomiej Zass Bartlomiej.Zass@microsoft.com

Portugal
Nuno Silva Nuno.Silva@microsoft.com

Puerto Rico
Yamille Morales ymorales@microsoft.com

Russia
Mik Chernomordikov mikcher@microsoft.com

Vladimir Kolesnikov vladkol@microsoft.com

Singapore
Chris Ismael chism@microsoft.com

South Africa
Nyaladzi Mpofu nmpofu@microsoft.com

Spain
Isabel Gomez Miragaya isabelg@microsoft.com

Elisa Garcia Anzano elisa.garcia@microsoft.com

Sweden
Dag König dagk@microsoft.com 

Switzerland
Stefano Malle Stefano.Malle@microsoft.com

Sascha Corti sascha.corti@microsoft.com

Taiwan
Eric ShangKuan ericsk@microsoft.com

Thailand
Ekaraj Kongswangwongsa ekarajk@microsoft.com

UK
William Coleman wcoleman@microsoft.com

Paul Foster paulfo@microsoft.com

Mike Ormond Mike.Ormond@microsoft.com

US
Joe Shirey joe.shirey@microsoft.com

Reza Alizadeh rezaali@microsoft.com

Christian Thilmany christhi@microsoft.com

Max Zilberman max.zilberman@microsoft.com

Rob Cameron Rob.Cameron@microsoft.com




Phones

We have phones for developers committed to building apps and games for Windows Phone.  This isn't a free ride program where we just hand out phones to people because they say they want one.  When you connect with your local champ, you are building a relationship that will hopefully last a long time.



We have current retail phones, and in the coming weeks/months, we will have updated Mango retail hardware phones.  We also have prototype Mango devices (which have the gyros not available on current retail devices), so if you are building an app which requires Mango hardware, you can make an ask of those as well.



Online Resources

Topic
What is it?
Link

App Hub
The central repository for all things Windows Phone for developers.  This is where you will go to create an account, get the tools, submit and manage your apps, participate in forums, etc.
http://create.msdn.com

Getting Started
Your first stop to get going on dev
http://wpdev.ms/startwpdev

Downloads
The dev tools – FREE – are here
http://wpdev.ms/wpdowns

Registration
Some people need a little extra help, and this walkthrough of the developer registration should be useful
http://wpdev.ms/regwalk

Submissions
A little extra help on the submission process.
http://wpdev.ms/subwalk

Certification Requirements
OK, your app is done, but will it pass cert?  We aim to give you plenty of visibility into the process and be very transparent on why your apps failed, but please read through this.
http://wpdev.ms/certreq

Jump Start
A video series sponsored by Channel9, our developer focused online video destination portal.
http://wpdev.ms/jumpstarts

Design Day
Every developer could probably use a little extra help with their app design.  Here are some great tutorials all about the Metro UI design language for Windows Phone.
http://wpdev.ms/designday

Absolute Beginners
There's always the possibility that you are big on ideas, but maybe not so much on dev skills.  That's OK.  We have a great course which will get you up to speed even if you are an absolute beginner.
http://wpdev.ms/beginvids

Mango Hands On Labs
If you want to dig a little deeper, but prefer the lab walkthrough format, we have some great labs here for you.
http://wpdev.ms/mangohol

!!! 

[Crivens]

Cool. I suppose. That "isn't a free ride" comment is interesting. I mean do they expect you to knock out apps or give the phone back? Personally I want a free phone. If I have spare time then I might use their tools to create an app, but more likely I will wait until GLB can compile for W7 in the future then wham recompile the whole the whole back catalogue and publish on W7.

So what are you going to do? Contact the UK mobile champ? Gotta love that; is like giving a kid a cute name to feel more important. Heh, "Mobile star", "Mobile hero", or "Mobile ace" would equally have been funny If my dad was in charge it would have been "Mobile Batman".

Cheers

[Ian Price]

I'm not sure yet. I don't know if I want to learn a whole new programming language (albeit similar to stuff I've done before), for a consumer advice that may be ignored by the masses. It was a no-brainer for the Pre - Gernot had done all the hard work and we knew the language, plus the device was free.

I think I'll contact them to find out a bit more.

[Crivens]

Fair enough. But what's the downside? At worst you get a free phone. Possibly take some time to learn the language, but more importantly can be used once GLB can compile to it (assuming it can be done). Ok so if you are covering iOS and Android then that should be the vast majority covered, but W7 is getting bigger and you never know in the future it maybe a decent competitor.

Well if you get any further note it here and hopefully we can all benefit.

Cheers

[MrTAToad]

Unfortunately Windows Phones use C#, which is a rather bloated and long-winded Microsoft designed language.  There are C++ to C# converters, but they are not cheap...  And free ones are only online converters...