We spoke with José Bonnin

With Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, Microsoft has jumped on the app bandwagon. And although some have another perception, Microsoft already has many years of experience in this world and knows perfectly how to deal with developers.

In Xataka Windows we have been talking José Bonnin (@ wasat), Technical Evangelist Manager at Microsoft Ibérica, to learn about application stores and development with Microsoft technologies. In addition, we have touched on other topics such as the convergence of Microsoft operating systems, free software or collaboration with other technology companies.

Xataka Windows: We start with a presentation. Who are you and what do you do at Microsoft?

José Bonnin I'm José Bonnin, Technical Evangelist Manager, and I manage a team of evangelists. We work with developers, companies, technical communities, IT Pros, startups, students..., and broadly speaking and very simplified we are dedicated to letting people know and get the most out of Microsoft technologies.

Xataka Windows: Right now, what are the advantages of developing for Microsoft platforms? What do you say to those developers you work with?

José Bonnin: The spectrum is vast. Related to applications, the question more than why is when do I start, and the answer is right now. We are seeing it every day, how Windows Phone and Windows 8 are seeing very good growth, the one that is growing the most and surpassing other platforms, as the third and even second platform in some countries.It is an ideal time to start developing.

The question is not why, but when do I start developing apps for Windows and Windows Phone. And the answer is already.

The most general answer is that Microsoft is a technology company, with a very clear focus on developers and partners. Microsoft works with partners, 6,000 partners who use our technology. And the model that we apply is not only to have you apply that technology, but also to help you succeed. With regard to applications, we can see it in how we cover the entire life cycle of the application and its launch on the market. First, we are offering training, be it online or face-to-face. In the online part we have Microsoft Virtual Academy, with a wide range of training. We are also continuously holding events in Madrid and other Spanish cities giving face-to-face training.

The next step is to see how we can help you to move forward.We offer free technical support for the developer: you send us an email and we solve any doubts you may have. In a more advanced stage of development we lend you devices, both Windows 8 and Windows Phone, of all ranges and screen sizes so that you can verify that the application works well in any scenario.

When you have the finished application and take it to the store, we help you promote the applications, either within the Store itself or through our own promotion channels. For example, we now have the campaign Windows Cine and Windows Phone Cine, aimed at promoting indie developers .

Xataka Windows: What type of developers can access this type of help that you offer?

José Bonnin: We cover all kinds of professionals, from students to companies, including startups. Students, through the DreamSpark program, get access to professional versions of our technology for free so they can work with the tools they're going to find in working life.This also includes free developer accounts.

Next step, to join the professional world directly through partners, companies that have a collaboration agreement with Microsoft; Or they can also set up their own company. There you have BizSpark, the program for entrepreneurs within Microsoft that seeks to help companies at the most difficult moment, at their birth. We cover several areas: licenses for the use of MS technologies, both development and platforms, and a credit of $6,000 per year for use in the cloud with Azure. BizSpark also has the entire network that allows you to hire talent, and puts you in touch with investors and accelerators (AppCampus, for example, which invests in promising applications with non-refundable funds).

In the end we cover very, very broad scenarios for all types of company sizes and all scenarios, from when you start thinking about an idea until you carry it out.

Xataka Windows: Microsoft also has the Azure platform. What advantages does that platform have right now for developers who want to develop with Windows and Windows Phone?

José Bonnin: I would not limit Azure to Windows and Windows Phone. We have several offerings: PaaS (Platform as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and all with the advantage of being designed from the ground up to be interoperable and open. You can work with .NET, obviously, but also with Ruby, PHP, Java, Node.js... More specifically, for applications you have Mobile Services, which allows you to quickly create a backend, with security, push notifications... A whole series of resources that allows you to work from any platform, and without necessarily having to use Microsoft technologies.

Application stores: expansion, business models and quality

Xataka Windows: In the Windows and Windows Phone markets, important applications are missing (or rather were missing), such as Facebook, Twitter , Instagram… How do you work with these great developers so that they bring their applications? In the more specific case of Google: how do you reconcile campaigns like Scroogled and later requests to bring apps to Windows Phone?

José Bonnin: The relationship with global companies is managed directly from the corporation. In the end, it is something that we are constantly seeing: the model in the technological world is a model in which you are competing in certain areas and in others you are collaborating. And it is true that with Google we have the Scroogled campaign, which is to raise awareness about the privacy of your data, and on the other hand we are collaborating on many other things. It's a bit of a frienemy relationship .

"The relationship with Google is one of simultaneous collaboration and competition, like frienemy"

Also, what you mentioned about the lack of certain applications is a work of perception that we need to work on. Missing apps, what are they? Let's go deeper, you can't have all the applications overnight. When analyzing, you realize that there are not that many missing, of the top 50 that had been identified, 48 or 49 were already there or confirmed that they were going to be there.

"

Xataka Windows: Do you have data on how much Windows Phone grows compared to what Android or iOS grew at the time? Many times we think how late the applications are arriving>"

José Bonnin: I don't have that information, but it wouldn't be very difficult to obtain by looking at the release dates of each one of the stores Of applications.

Xataka Windows: One of the advantages of entering Microsoft stores is that there is not as much competition as there may be in Android or iOS.Have you seen many success stories where companies got into Windows Phone first and as a result got more traction on other systems?

José Bonnin: Yes, constantly. More than calling it a lack of competition is how you are able to monetize the platform. Many people are basing their decision on how to prioritize only on market share when, although it is one of the factors to take into account, the reality is that there is already a sufficient user base as Yatzy has shown. What you have to see is also the ability you will have to highlight your app and monetize it. That's where we help publishers.

And we have many success stories. Royal Revolt was released at the same time on Windows 8 and other platforms, and on Windows 8 it's seeing double the revenue and ten times the downloads. We've also seen it with Conquer, which is seeing more revenue on Windows 8/Windows Phone than on other platforms.In the end, the ability to monetize matters more. On other platforms, the piracy rate is so high that it is not interesting to publish, in a recent case there was a ratio of 350 pirated downloads to 1 legitimate, which makes it very difficult to maintain the structure.

If your application is successful, my platform improves too

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This is what I was telling you before. Party is at fault>"

We are also giving tips on how to avoid some common mistakes. For example, some people who have a lot of experience on other platforms make a very common mistake, which is to bring their application twice with a free version and a paid version. On other platforms there is no or there was no possibility of mounting a test app, however in Windows 8 and Windows Phone people are used to testing and then upgrading to the paid one, which prevents the developer from having to position two apps and get good ratings in two different apps.All this type of advice and help makes it easier to be much more successful on our platform.

Xataka Windows: Do we have any similar success stories in applications developed in Spain?

José Bonnin: Indeed, you don't have to go outside of Spain to find these cases. Pikura, for example, a photo challenge app, was launched recently and 80-90% of users were on Windows Phone and not Android. We have also seen it with NigmaLab, who have apps for all platforms and 80% of their income is coming through Windows 8.

Xataka Windows: Could you share numbers about MS app stores? Number of developers, applications, downloads, income for each download…

José Bonnin: We have no numbers to share right now.

Xataka Windows How is the Windows 8 Store working? The user is used to going to the browser, downloading the _.exe and installing, how are you accepting the paradigm shift of the store?_

The best example is what I was telling you before, the success that various applications are having within Windows 8 and not just Windows Phone. The good thing about Windows 8 is that it allows you the entire work scenario, from the mobility model with tablets and applications to the more business model with traditional desktop applications.

Many large companies are modernizing their applications and moving them to Modern UI

Where we are seeing change is that many large companies are modernizing their applications. By modernizing I mean changing the interface but also the update cycles, and much of that change is going through becoming Modern UI apps. In the last Build we saw the case of a large Spanish company, Acciona, which manages its power plants with Windows 8 tablets and Modern UI applications. Another clear example is the case of Delta Airlines, which is going to incorporate Windows 8 into the pilots' computers.All of this gives you the pulse of whether or not it's being used, and it clearly looks like it is.

Xataka Windows Let's talk about business models in the Store. Are you seeing traditional models being used or are Microsoft Stores allowing developers to innovate with ways to make money?

José Bonnin: We see that the in-app purchase models work very well. The digital goods part is what is allowing more income to be generated on the platform. This implies that you have to think more about how to design your application. It's not as easy as sticking right in. It is fine to have a series of income, but you have to think it through so that it is not intrusive and fits. But the part of digital goods is working very well and that is having a quite powerful return.

Also, the good thing about the Microsoft platform is once again that it allows you all scenarios and a lot of flexibility. We put the technology at your disposal (SDKs and in-app purchases), but if you already have another payment platform or you can use it without problems.

Xataka Windows: How are Microsoft stores doing in terms of the quality of applications?

José Bonnin Well, there is everything. The moment you open a store so that people can publish meeting the certification criteria, people will send their applications. And evaluating the quality is very subjective: if I had to decide, I would never have left the application of the beer that emptied, that of farting, etc., which are very basic but have been very successful in other stores. What to look for is natural selection within the Store: anyone, as long as they meet the certification criteria, can submit their app and it will be up to the marketplace to decide. What we are doing is what I was telling you about, we are helping so that the applications have the best possible quality through various mechanisms: the store's certification criteria and the application review programs to which anyone who sends us a mail can request.

Convergence, expansion to other platforms and free software

Xataka Windows: A few days ago, Julie Larson-Green said that in the future there would not be three Windows OS. You have also made progress in this regard with the single registration for developers. Is there going to be a single app store in the future where we can create a single app for all platforms?

José Bonnin: Today there is no more to share than what has already been announced. What we are doing is sharing the vision that we have at Microsoft: a single user experience for all platforms, Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox One. Part of that vision is to make life as easy as possible for developers, and the first step In this way, it has been to unify the registration process, which I think was something that made a lot of sense.

As of today, you already have part of what you are commenting on.Speaking on a more technical level, you have the Portable Libraries, which allow you to take a library and compile it for Windows, Windows Phone, Silverlight... In addition, we have now extended them with Xamarin so that it also works with Android and iOS.

Xataka Windows: To develop for .NET you need to use Microsoft tools: Windows, Visual Studio. Will you continue with this strategy or are you going to open up to more platforms, giving more support to solutions like Xamarin or Mono so that other developers can get a little into Microsoft development environments?

José Bonnin: We are creating the best development tools for the Windows platform. There's a very strong statement of intent in the partnership agreement with Xamarin, that's very significant. Today the tool we are offering is Visual Studio, a fantastic tool that covers from the free version (VS Express) to Visual Studio Ultimate.But it is not the only one, you can also work from Linux with Mono thanks to the work of Miguel de Icaza and Xamarin. We have not announced nor do I have more information to create tools on other platforms.

Xataka Windows Right now, what is Microsoft's position on free software?

José Bonnin I believe that Microsoft has been working more than people know about free software and open standards. Today you can not only find many open projects developed with Microsoft technology - you just have to go to Github or Codeplex to see it - but also internal Microsoft tools. For example, ASP.NET, WebAPI, MVC, SignalR, MicroFramework, all Azure SDKs, EF... As you can see, Microsoft's position, which has been more visible for a year with the opening of Microsoft Open Tech, dedicated to projects free software and interoperability. We have worked on a wide spectrum of projects, such as the launch in December 2012 of Pointers, a W3C standard for reacting to different inputs (mouse, keyboard, fingers) in a unique way, and the first prototype developed was for WebKit.

We have worked on open standards with OData, contributions to the HTML5 standard, to ECMAScript, DLTF for cloud interoperability and infrastructure management, contributions to jQuery, on Linux (so that Linux can be managed from System Center and run on top of Hyper-V). It's good for users, good for communities, and good for Microsoft too.

Xataka Windows And how would you change the perception that users currently have about Microsoft and free software?

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Microsoft suffers the Mégane effect>"

José Bonnin: The truth is that I don't know how I would change it, but I compare it a lot with the Mégane effect. Coming here, how many Renault Meganes have you seen? Could you tell me? No. If you had seen a Bugatti Veyron, you would remember. It turns out that Bugattis are very few, and Meganes are everywhere. What I mean by this is that sometimes it is very difficult to see the work that is done daily, all the projects that we have been working on for a long time.What I invite people is to visit MS Open Tech, Codeplex or Github and see all the projects we have. And, above all, that when they give their opinion, they do so with information and not only with perception

Xataka Windows: That's all, José, thank you very much for helping us. If you want to comment on any additional topic, this is the moment .

José Bonnin: I'd like to invite readers to the contests we're running for Windows 8 and Windows Phone app developers: IAppYou; Olimpiadapps, where universities with many participants can win a Microsoft classroom valued at 15,000 euros with the latest Microsoft devices; Game Dev Challenge, where we look for the best video game; and The War of the Drones, where you have to create applications to control Parrot's AR.Drone 2.0.

We are also on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the EsMSDN blog. We invite readers to follow us and if you have comments for us or things you'd like us to discuss, let us know and we'll be delighted.

So much for the interview with José Bonnin, whom we thank once again for helping us and answering our questions. We hope you found it interesting.