Silverlight on Mobile : Getting started

Past,Current and Future of Mobility :

Mobile as a “Technology” is not new to us, Mobile is our lifeline we can say, In this part of world, India, There is a tremendous growth in Mobile Subscribers and each year after year it is setting new benchmarks. I remember the time when Mobile phones were owned by Rich guys only since the service was too expensive.Government policies and involvement of Indian and Multinationals and their contribution, Now Mobile is in hands of Common man. I don’t want to spend time on Pros and Cons of mobility, But whatever I observe, There is not much awareness about the “Power and Potential” of these Mobile devices due to lack of awareness of Tools and Technology to develop applications for Mobile , Mobiles now changing the way we live, they are changing world economy with applications like M-PESA for example,World is at our fingertips now !

Microsoft and Mobile :

The power of .NET Framework already shown its strength to build Next Gen Apps to the world, .NET Compact Framework is what you can say Heart and Brain for Windows Mobile. I know there are others who are flying high in the same sky like Symbian, iPhone, Android etc. But after good success of .NET Compact Framework on Windows Mobile devices, now its time for Silverlight on Mobile to outshine and fly more high than other players. Offcourse strength of Windows Phone7 Hardware,Software and XNA Games Framework will be there along with it.

The Windows Phone 7 :

Well, lets not get into why they kept name as “Windows Phone 7” or how it is similar or different from other phones in functionality and behavior, There are already forums/blogs available on this to fire the forest up ! ;-) .. Let’s spend some quality time to understand what is the “Windows Phone 7” all about and how developer and enthusiast like you and me can develop some useful applications for this with using our current skills of Silverlight.

Windows Phone 7 is the upcoming Operating System made by Microsoft for Windows Mobile devices announced recently and demonstrated to millions in annual MIX event.

Whatever research I done on this allows me to say that current series of Windows Mobile devices does not comply the Hardware-Software prerequisites set by Windows Phone 7, So it will be altogether new generation of Devices with brand new OS. At the moment, I do not have any physical device to talk on, So I will not talk more on “How many buttons it will have”, “What Megapixel Camera it will have” and stuff like that.

Silverlight on Mobile :

Just to let you know, beside Windows Phone 7, Silverlight is now also available on Nokia Devices i.e S60 Platform which includes Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N97. Read more on Silverlight on Nokia devices here : http://www.silverlight.net/getstarted/devices/symbian/

If you are interested in Deep dive Architecture, I will then suggest you to have a look at Abhinaba’s articles. [ Abhinaba Basu is a extremely talented guy in the Windows Mobile space, he works for Microsoft India and I got chance to interact with him in person at Microsoft India Hyderabad Campus when I was there for South Asia MVP Summit 2010 early this year], Refer :

For Nokia :

http://geekgyan.blogspot.com/2010/03/silverlight-on-nokia-s60-platform.html

For Silverlight on Windows Phone 7 :

http://www.silverlight.net/getstarted/devices/windows-phone/

What’s next ? :

With the basic understanding of Windows Phone 7 here, from next article onwards, we will start saying first “Hello World” followed by other various aspects of application development for Windows Phone 7, So keep your Coffee/Beer ready, lot more to come here soon…

Vikram.