My hypothesis is that winning over developers to use their platform will eventually result in more Azure users. I get the feeling Azure will be their one of their next cash cows, and this is one of the steps in enabling that.
Azure users and native app developers on the Windows Store.
With the free W10 upgrades for 7/8 users and a 30% cut of Windows Store sales, they stand to make some money. But they have to get developers back on their side first, otherwise the store stays dominated by garbage.
But aren't Store apps essentially built on the Win32 API? I remember an article basically saying '.NET didn't win' for that development. I could be recalling wrong, and I'm sure there are wrappers and such, but still...
Most of the WinAPI is abstracted out for Store apps as most will be using either .Net or JavaScript for their applications, with the latter essentially being extended/embedded web applications iirc.
I haven't paid much attention to native apps either desktop or mobile. I've built my career understanding distributed systems/communications flows and web based fromt ends... To me most of that is a better experience than what little attempts I've made at front end platform development.
The current crop of store apps are in a more limited API. But as of today, MS is also going to be selling traditional Win32 apps shipped in a sandbox that allows for clean install/uninstall. Demo showed Photoshop Elements.
They're also supporting Objective-C now, with VS slupring up Xcode projects. Did not expect that one.
