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Microsoft is ratcheting up its push for developers, and now we know specifically when Redmond will make its foray.
The software giant announced last month that it would hold a Windows Phone developer summit on June 20-21, but now it appears we will be getting a taste of its next-generation mobile operating system. Microsoft sent out invitations to the press today for a June 22 event in San Francisco that promises “a sneak peek of the future of Windows Phone.”
While the invitation doesn’t specifically mention Window Phone 8, the connection is pretty clear. Sources have told The Verge that the event will unveil new ways for creating apps for the new Windows 8-based kernel of Windows Phone 8.
Attracting app developers is key to closing the gap separating its Windows Phone application Marketplace from Android’s Google Play and iPhone’s App Store, and San Francisco is the best venue for tapping into Silicon Valley’s software-development community.
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Microsoft hasn’t neglected mobile apps, but it has had to retool its efforts after chucking the previous Windows Mobile platform. To ensure it had developers’ interest, the company last year began paying them for their Windows Phone attention.
That tactic appears to have won some app authors’ hearts: since Microsoft started paying a bounty, the number of apps at the Windows Phone app store increased from 30,000 apps in May 2011, to 50,000 in December of that year, to 80,000 this April.
