Aral Balkan

Last week, my friend Mike Downey (who now works at Microsoft) tweeted:

Wow - can't believe we are giving away free laptops to all paid PDC attendees! Very cool! #pdc09

Of course, being the Microsoft sceptic that I am (hey, you try using Microsoft crap for over 20 years and see if you don't develop an allergy for it), I responded by instinct with:

RT @scottjanousek: RT @mdowney: we are giving away free laptops to all paid PDC attendees! #pdc09 <- now THATs SWAG! <-- or desperation :)

But something about my response didn't sit right with me and it stuck at the back of my head like chewing gum in my hair.

Sure, they don't get UX (maybe they're too big to get UX).

Sure, they're evil (heck, they've got Steve Ballmer at the helm – would you like to meet him in a dark alleyway?)

And, sure, they made my life hell every day that I used Windows to the point where I considered giving up working with computers altogether (I'm writing this on my Mac, which I would kiss if I wasn't in public right now).

But Microsoft gets developers.

They understand that developers have so much choice today that it's up to the platform vendors to go to extremes to attract them.

So, yes, it is desperation.

But it's the same desperation every platform vendor should be feeling (perhaps not Apple but remember, you're not Apple.)

Giving away free laptops, pre-loaded with their development software, is exactly what I would have recommended that they do if I was running their developer relations team. Basically, it's the next logical step beyond what I recommended mobile companies like Samsung, Nokia, Palm, etc., do in my dating guide for the discerning mobile platform post.

So, Microsoft, kudos for understanding that you need to go to extremes to attract developers.

Making it dead simple for developers to evaluate your platform is the way to attract developers. If that means giving away laptops preloaded with the development environment so I can start evaluating your framework instead of not bothering, then so be it.

Mobile companies looking to attract developers to their platforms have a lot to learn from Microsoft's approach.

Comments

• Microsoft often do get UX these days. They just don't do UX the way you like it. UX is an incredibly subjective field. There is no single right way to do it, though there are plenty of wrong ways. Windows 7 is a joy to use: Microsoft got UX there. It is only a joy to use if one disables UAC: Microsoft utterly failed with UX on that front. I've never really used OS X in anger so can't compare it. I have an iPhone though, so I know that Apple too sometimes does get UX, and sometimes doesn't. The general use of the iPhone - like Windows 7 - is a joy. Try turning off power-hungry features to conserve power for example (I think it takes around 30-40 finger presses to achieve this) or change the tone for emails, messages etc and one quickly finds Apple can screw up UX big time too sometimes. Many conferences are struggling at the moment (what happened to Remix UK or MAX Europe this year and Java One this year was possibly the last) and laptops are relatively cheap compared with the PDC ticket cost. Maybe it is a desperate give-away, I see it more as just a clever gimmick though.

  by David Arno on 2009-11-25 19:23:54

• Interesting approach giving Laptops aways, these are deperate times.

  by David Smith on 2009-11-25 18:22:24

• This is exactly what PayPal did to launch their developer platform: gave everyone a free netbook loaded with developer documentation and with all the API libraries pre-loaded into Eclipse and NetBeans. (Asus EEE with XP Home.) Idea: if laptops are too expensive, give people a DVD with a VirtualBox VM with Linux or Windows or whatever on it plus all the dev tools on it.

  by Tom Morris on 2009-11-24 18:05:33

• I agree with your sentiment. But the developers at that conference were already dedicated MS developers. There was no evaluation, no persuasion needed. This was a reward for being dedicated. In that, it's still a good idea, it still "gets" developers and it's a clever incentive to get developers to more of their conferences and drive the kind of passion that you clearly have for your Apple. I like the current two (or three) tier Internet. We're out there with our variety of scripting skills enjoying life, MS are catering for massive corporations who need stability and enterprise support, and then I guess there's Java for corporations who can't afford MS.

  by bob on 2009-11-24 17:18:14

• So true! We are lucky to live in a time where (as developers) there is a cornucopia of solutions/platforms to choose from for any given project. I would say though, that there is more to this than Microsoft just trying to attract developers... something else that they 'get.' Consider for a moment how many new and delicious mobile phones, tablets, and hardware items are announced each day. How much money did you or your company spend on software or upgrades this year? Did conference attendance come out of your own pocket this time around? ...perhaps the most challenging of all - is getting upper-management to buy-in on technologies X, Y, and Z for a particular project. These days, it is ridiculously expensive to be a developer or to support development; expense includes but is not limited to time, money, training, and disruption. Microsoft knows that developers are more inclined to adopt and go-to-bat-for a particular platform (hardware or software) if they feel their time is being well spent (read: platform is stable and mature). Attract... yes... desperation... I'm not so sure. I'm more inclined to see this as Microsoft drawing a line in the sand.

  by Rick Winscot on 2009-11-24 18:35:46