In San Francisco’s Moscone West convention center, Microsoft began their annual Build developer conference announcing that they are making available Windows licenses for free for smartphones and small tablets. This will allow mobile phone and device manufacturers to offer Windows for their phone and mini tablets without being required to pay a licensing fee per device to Microsoft.
The Build conference is one of the most popular events in technology and the ticket for the 2014 version, which is taking place in the first week of April, sold out since January 15th, 2014. Microsoft’s executive vice president Terry Myerson marked the beginning of the conference declaring that the idea of giving away Windows licenses for free is aimed to enable developers to promote their applications to more customers and to reach more phone and small tablet users.
While the announcement means that Microsoft is willing to offer their Windows mobile version for free, they will continue charging for their Windows desktop software which is the core of their billionaire earnings. The decision not to charge for Windows Phone, can be explained by the fact that this software has not been as successful as the leaders of this market: iOS and Android.
In the meantime, the company also introduced universal Windows apps, which is set to help developers to avoid having to create many versions of their apps. With universal Windows apps, developers can use the same method to build apps for phones, tablets, and PC, making things simple for every aspect of the creation. Further updates from Microsoft are expected as Build continues until the end of the week in San Francisco.
