Pursuing the future of homebrew on Windows Phone 7

[Mr. Gibs]

Earlier today, we were contacted by Brandon Watson, Director of Developer Experience for Windows Phone 7, to discuss the ChevronWP7 unlocking tool.

Through this discussion, we established a mutual understanding of our intent to enable homebrew opportunities and to open the Windows Phone 7 platform for broader access to developers and users.

To pursue these goals with Microsoft?s support, Brandon Watson has agreed to engage in futher discussions with us about officially facilitating homebrew development on WP7. To fast-track discussions, we are discontinuing the unlocking tool effective immediately.

We are excited to explore the opportunity to become more involved with the shaping of the platform and to build a feedback channel for developers around the world.

To reiterate our enthusiasm to enable new opportunities, we have made available a WP7 custom ringtone manager that shows off exciting platform potential. The source code has also been made available to guide homebrew developers.

We look forward to sharing some good news soon.

Source: ChevronWP7

Microsoft looking into officially supporting homebrew? If things work out this could be great for both consumers and developers.

[George P Global Moderator]

They see the demand for it so they'll lose out if they don't. Besides I think they already have some sort of "homebrew" system of their own in the works already but for business to deploy it's apps to WP7 phones.

In the end MS doesn't really lose I guess since if a dev wants to make money off of their app they'll have to end up paying the fee so they can get into the marketplace. If all you do is make and give out free apps it's really not negative to MS and helps boost the platform as a whole.