San Francisco – Windows Phone 7, which is Microsoft's revamped smartphone operating system, and Silverlight, the company's rich Internet application platform, might seem geared primarily to glitzy, for-fun applications.
registry cleaner But Microsoft observers see an enterprise business application case for these two budding technologies. (Silverlight is being paired with the XNA gaming app dev platform to serve as the application development platform for Windows Phone 7.)
During the recent Mix10 conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft showed Windows Phone 7 used for entertainment applications, such as photo storage and an electronic diary. Windows Phone 7 handsets will also serve as a Zune video and music player. As for Silverlight, Microsoft cited Silverlight's prominence in entertainment, including streaming coverage of the Olympics and a Victoria's Secret fashion show.
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"They do seem to be focusing quite heavily on the social side of things," notes Lauren Fear, a graphic designer at software development house Black Marble.
But that focus on games and entertainment obscures the potential for business usage of Silverlight and Windows Phone 7. For example, Microsoft also demoed the Silverlight-based Simple Lister, an eBay selling application, and the company noted
registry software the use of Silverlight in business applications by companieslike SAP and Xerox. Windows Phone 7, meanwhile, can be used for such business purposes as email triage and calendaring, Microsoft says.
"I think it is an answer to the iPhone, but more important, it's a natural extension of the other things they're doing with Xbox and with Zune and with Windows Media Center PCs," says Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology, a trade organization representing about 4,000 small and midsize IT companies globally.
"[The new phone operating system is] sort of a natural, evolutionary step to go that direction, and I think it's why they started over with that technology," Zuck says.
He anticipates development of business applications
registry software reviews for Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight, even if it means recreational applications get the attention at first. "The fun applications are what draw people to these platforms initially, and the business cases start to come over time," Zuck says.