Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, putting in an appearance at Nokia’s rollout of new Lumia smartphones based on Windows Phone 8, used his time on stage to court software developers and “bet” the next great app would be developed for Windows.
“Make no mistake about it. This is the year for Windows,” Ballmer said in New York today. “Windows phone, Windows tablets, Windows PCs. It is the year for Windows. We’ve re-imagined Windows from the ground up...All of the devices are designed to be beautiful and functional.”
Ballmer said the Windows platform “represents the single-largest opportunity for software developers today.”
Nokia and Microsoft paired up 18 months ago in a bid to help each other gain ground in the phone market. Nokia, suffering from competition with Apple and devices running Google’s Android software, is looking to Windows Phone 8 software to help invigorate the brand and to capitalize on Microsoft’s “ecosystem” of technology and developers.
Microsoft, meanwhile, is counting on new versions of its flagship Windows operating system to power a new generation of smartphones, tablets and PCs as it competes against Apple and Google.
There are now more than 100,000 apps available for Windows Phone, up from about 7,000 at the start of 2011.
"One year from now, between Windows phones, Windows tablets, Windows PCs, we should see we should see close to more than 400 million new devices running those new operating systems," Ballmer said. "Those devices running Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, I’m quite sure, represent the largest single opportunity for software developers today -- 400 million per year is unrivaled. I’ll bet you right now, the next app developer to hit it really, really big will be an app developer on Windows."
