10 Reasons to Develop For Windows Phone, and 5 Concerns

A great advice/perspective post about the advantages and disadvantages of developing for Windows Phone was published this week on the Silverlight Rumblings blog by Kelly White.  He had ten, well-reasoned explanations of Windows Phone ecosystem aspects that would potentially make it your platform of choice for mobile development. 

Of particluar interest to me was his thoughts on how the Windows 8 Metro ecosystem could make Windows Phone really take off:

Arguably this reason could have been number one, however Windows 8 has not even been released.  Let’s think about this.  Windows 8 takes advantage of the Metro design language.  Metro now becomes the common design theme across the three screens (PC, Xbox, Phone).  Let’s be honest, once Windows 8 is released then every PC becomes an advertisement for buying a Windows Phone.  I saw a guy selling a laptop on the home shopping network, and he kept chanting how the world runs Windows, and Windows is what you know, and you won’t get lost when you use it.  Techies will purchase a Macbook Air and an iPhone or Android.  The rest of the world will purchase Windows 8 and then have their first smart phone be a Windows Phone.  I’m generalizing and I shouldn’t be, but we all know there’s more truth in that statement then we’d like to admit.
-- Kelly White

If Windows 8 is a success with the average consumer, it could be boon to Windows Phone sales as well, but as we learned from Vista, there's no guarantee.  In the spirit of fairness, he also posted 5 concerns about Windows Phones.  You should definitely check it out regardless of your development background.

Source: http://kelly.whitepdx.com/post/95