Last Updated on January 31, 2020 by Mathew Diekhake
Today, I had the honor of speaking to thousands of our development partners at the Build conference about our plans to make Windows 10 the most attractive development platform ever. It is always thrilling to see so many developers excited about Microsoft – and this year, about Windows 10. If you weren’t able to attend or watch it live, you can watch the keynote here later this afternoon once it’s posted.
Windows 10 on One Billion Devices
Today we shared our bold goal –to see Windows 10 on one billion devices within two to three years of Windows 10’s availability – the first platform version, in any ecosystem, to be available on one billion devices. We will accomplish this by delivering Windows 10 with a free upgrade offer, making it easy for customers and businesses to upgrade quickly, and with great new devices (which we haven’t discussed yet ).
Windows Store for Consumers, Businesses, and Developers
Today, we shared more details on what the Windows Store will offer to end-users, businesses, and developers. Developers will be able to write an application once and distribute it to the entire Windows 10 device family, making discovery, purchasing and updating easy for customers.
For end-users, apps in the Windows Store will install and uninstall easily, and the Store will support a range of global payment methods on all Windows devices – including the largest carrier billing footprint of any ecosystem, supporting 90 carriers, to help people around the world who don’t have credit cards, but do have phones.
For businesses, the Windows Store enables admins to highlight apps for their employees, distribute select apps from the Windows Store and private line-of-business apps to their employees, and use business payment methods like purchase orders.
For developers, we announced several new capabilities coming to Windows 10:
- Carrier billing across all Windows 10 devices, which from our phone experience, increases purchases in emerging markets by 8x
- Updated Windows 10 Microsoft Advertising SDK with support for video ads and install tracking
- In-app purchase subscription support
- New Windows Store Affiliate Program
Universal Windows Platform Innovation
With the Universal Windows Platform, developers can now create a single application for the full range of Windows 10 devices. The platform’s UX controls automatically adapt to different screen sizes, and the developer can then tailor applications to unique capabilities of each device. The platform enables developers to integrate Cortana and Xbox Live into their applications, offer trusted commerce, embrace natural user input, create holograms, and more.
The Universal Windows Platform enables Continuum. Previously, we’ve demonstrated how Universal Windows apps and the Windows shell transition seamlessly between tablet and PC modes. Today, we showed how Universal Windows apps and Continuum for phones enables a screen to become like a PC.*
The Universal Windows Platform enables applications to become holograms. Today we shared our progress over the last 100 days since announcing Microsoft HoloLens – the world’s first, and only, fully untethered holographic computer powered by Windows 10. Today, we shared how HoloLens is helping Trimble and its customers visualize building designs in the context of real world objects and landscapes, giving them the ability to walk around designs while clients view them remotely and see street side how a building is going to look. And how medical students at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic learn procedures without ever picking up a scalpel!
Many partners are building amazing apps on the Universal Windows Platform. Today, we demoed USA Today and WeChat. Other partners onboard include Disney, Netflix, and King to name just a few.
Windows 10 Welcomes All Developers and Their Code
Windows has always embraced a variety of technologies to build apps. At Build last year, we detailed our support for open source and popular middleware partners, open sourced .NET, and announced native Cordova support in Visual Studio.
Today, we announced four new SDKs, enabling developers to start with an existing code base, integrate with the Universal Windows Platform capabilities, and then distribute their new application through the Windows Store to the one billion Windows 10 devices. The code bases enabled by these SDKs are:
- Web sites
- .NET and Win32
- Android Java/C++
- iOS Objective C
Today, we announced that Adobe will bring their Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements apps to the Windows Store, leveraging the new SDK for Win32 applications. We look forward to more of the current 16 million Win32 applications growing their distribution through the Windows Store.
Today, we also shared that King has already used the Objective C SDK to bring Candy Crush Saga to Windows Phone. The app came to market quickly with very few code modifications, and has earned a 4.5 average rating.
Microsoft Edge
Today we announced the name of our new browser, Microsoft Edge. We chose the name Microsoft Edge as it reflects our commitment to developers to deliver a browser that lives at the edge of modern web standards and security. Microsoft Edge is a browser built for doing, with built-in note taking and sharing; a reading pane for no distractions; and integration with Cortana. We showcased how Microsoft Edge will offer developers better discoverability of their apps and our plans for future extensibility with JavaScript and HTML. You can see more about Microsoft Edge in this video.
Begin Developing Today!
We’re excited that we’re well on our way to making Windows 10 available this summer. Most of the features that we have shared today will be available at launch; others will roll out later this year. The beauty of launching Windows 10 as a service means we can deliver new technology as soon as it is ready.
New tools for Universal Windows app development will be available later today at this location. I welcome you to join the Windows Insider Program to get the latest tech previews of Windows 10 as they become available, including the latest build for PCs, which will also be available later today.
I’m excited to see what you create!
*Hardware requirements will apply.
March 17, 2019 @ 23:21
What is this? Instead of Microsoft using their billion dollar budget on developers, they’ll just get the community to do it for free instead? I’ve never understood why anyone would participate in these programs but they are becoming increasingly popular everywhere I look. Apple doesn’t do its own developing, Android doesn’t do its own developing, websites aren’t even doing their own writing anymore (Quora).
March 17, 2019 @ 23:24
It can be advantageous to people if they’re given the chance to contribute to developing ideas. Many people who are fresh out of college are looking for projects they can contribute to to help build up their skills. There would still be a fairly extensive development team that is employed by Microsoft in addition to all the contributions they may get.
The biggest thing they get from the general public is the ideas. This is also very popular across the board between Google, Apple and now Microsoft. They don’t care too much about what the best way to do something is, they seem to be more interested in finding out what people want and then rolling with that regardless of what it is.