Microsoft Recruits College Students To Crank Out Win 8 Apps
Microsoft is tapping into the college scene to help fill the Windows Store with Windows 8 apps.
BusinessWeek has an interesting article about NERD, or rather, Microsoft's New England Research & Development Center. This branch of the Redmond company has recruited college students to write apps that will help fill the Windows Store prior to Windows 8's launch. However this summer's batch of 21 interns only managed to crank out five apps, three of which are already available and two that are on the way.
“Microsoft is definitely playing catch-up with respect to the global app marketplace,” said David Hilal, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets, in an interview. “Their challenge is a chicken-and-egg problem. They need to get more users for their apps to entice developers, but they need better apps to attract more users.”
Currently there's a significant number of apps on the Windows Store – there are even apps for Tom's Hardware and Tom's Guide – but their number pales in comparison to Apple's App Store and Google Play. Even more, Microsoft is pushing to offer apps for two platforms: the ARM-based Windows RT and the x86/x64-based Windows 8 Pro.
"The apps ecosystem is probably the single most important factor in a customer’s experience," said Al Hilwa, an analyst at market researcher IDC. "It dictates what books you read, what music you listen to, what movies you see, what social activities you take part in. Problem is, you can’t have half a million apps overnight."
Microsoft reportedly recruited interns last year to write prototype apps for the Windows 8 preview. They generated six apps which in turn generated enough interest among computer science students for Microsoft to make the pilot program a permanent thing.
As for the actual apps, Catch It is a commuter-transit app slated to launch later this month. There's also Trackage which allows users to track packages shipped by FedEx, UPS, the U.S. Post Office and LaserShip, and an alarm clock called Never Late. Inkarus is a physics-based game featuring a chubby penguin who must collect components for a flying machine, and FaceReel uses facial recognition to generate videos out of a set of images.
Ultimately NERD aims to create a devoted group of Windows 8 "converts" who will spread good cheer throughout all the land of computer science majors and design students, convincing them to develop Windows 8 apps too.
"Because Windows 8 is pre-release, it’s been so exciting to get my hands on it before other people have been able to," said Emily Lin, a media arts and sciences major at Wellesley College, who served as the designer on the Catch It team. "When I tell my friends, they say, 'That’s so cool that you are getting to develop on Windows 8.'"
To read the full article, head here.

At least it's better than business students with no skills or experience writing apps
At least it's better than business students with no skills or experience writing apps
Pure trash? No. Metro does not equate to an entire OS becoming pure trash. That would be like saying Linux is pure trash because it does not have the compatibility and support that Windows does.
Windows 8 is infact great, but the UI is drastically changed which is the only real negative; you can always use WinStart to restore the old start menu(while retaining the ability to use Metro if desired).
...
I am sick of this obsession with apps - they are programs, deal with it
None of those are designed for small touchscreens and none of them even run on ARM based windows tablets.
Microsft desperately needs "apps" if they want to get into that market.
- will be designed to run full screen, one at time, stealing all the focus like in the '80s and like all the full screen software I hated in the last 30 years
- will be thought for a 5" touch rather than for my 23" non touch monitor (I'm not Mr Fantastic)
- that will communicate with other apps through a new proprietary API that has not sustained a bit of analysis in the wild yet rather than the all the way applications used to communicate since the beginning of the time
- that will treat me like a minus habens hiding me the filesystem
- that will be distributed only after authorization of the monopolist, and best applications can be removed if they do things bad to M$ - p2p, competition to their software, search/ads/social other than Bing/MSN or whatever they will courteously like to authorize.
Let me say how excited I'm to enter Bob 2.0 era
1. Bypass the blocky interface and boot to Desktop
2. Add the Start Button.
:::rolls eyes:::
Not designed for does not mean they don't work at all, they don't "need" them to get up and running, if you needed a perfect system right from the launch day then Apple wouldn't have pushed out it's turd of a Maps program
This will only happen if x86/x64 compatability is removed - which it isn't and likely never will be - the market will dictate which platform dies and which survives and the RT vs Win8 Pro will go the way of Win8 Pro, so you can stop having a heart attack