Is Pocket Informant Developer WebIS Looking at Adding iPad Client?

Gear Diary’s Dan Cohen takes a little time to talk with Alex Kac from WebIS about their plans for the pending release of Apple’s iPad. If you’re a Pocket Informant or WebIS user, you’ll be interested in hearing what Alex has to say.

The iPad is scheduled to arrive for those that pre-ordered one on April 3rd. Initial response to Apples iPad announcement has been mixed, with many not seeing much value or place for the device in their current routines. Success of the iPad won’t be known until it starts shipping and there is some actual real world reviews.

The next question, given today’s Windows Phone announcements, is simple – are we going to see WebIS and other popular Windows Mobile developers return to Microsoft’s new mobile platform when devices start shipping later this year? Given the growing number of mobile operating systems, developers need to do what they can to make their products port quickly and easily to other platforms.

You can read details of Dan’s exclusive talk with WebIS over at GearDiary.

Microsoft Shares Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Story at MIX

At MIX10 today, Microsoft unveiled the developer platform for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series devices. Windows Phone 7 Series was announced at Mobile World Congress last month and devices are expected to be available by holiday 2010.

Mobile development for Windows Phone 7 will be based on Silverlight and the XNA Framework. This will provide a rich environment for internet based applications and game development. As expected, Windows Phone 7 will use the mobile marketplace to deliver applications to the device and providing developers with a 70% revenue share for applications sold.

Perhaps the single best piece of news is that Microsoft has listened and will be providing free Windows Phone Developer tools. For those that have been in the Windows Mobile space for a while, you will recall that there was a free tool that allowed you to develop directly for mobile. Around the release of version 5, it was removed and replaced with Visual Studio – and not the free version. This has been a pain point for many developers over the years and it’s something that I repeatedly brought to Microsoft’s attention whenever possible. Thankfully, they have seen the light and returned to providing free development tools for the mobile space. Expression Blend for Windows Phone and a preview of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone will be available as a download from http://developer.windowsphone.com.

The full press release can be found after the jump.

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