Microsoft Promotes iOS, Mac Development With Windows Azure

Microsoft has put up a new demo video for Windows Azure developers that features Brent Simmons, the developer of NetNewsWire, MarsEdit, and Glassboard. The demo features Simmons showing how he uses Windows Azure cloud services with his apps and goes in-depth on how to use Azure Mobile Services with your app. If you’d like to view the three-part demo session for yourself, head on over to Microsoft’s website.

Mobile Services is a relatively new service offered by Microsoft that allows developers to easily add a cloud back-end to apps. Mobile Services can be easily managed by a web-based dashboard that is available via the Windows Azure website. If you’re an iOS, Android or Windows Phone developer, Microsoft has plenty of tutorials available on its Azure website to help you integrate the service with your app. It’s platform agnostic.

We think it’s pretty cool that Microsoft is offering such high levels of support for its Apple and Google counterparts. Bringing in a well-known Apple developer is sure to appeal to the sometimes anti-Microsoft Apple development community. Microsoft is well-known for licensing its technologies to major competitors like Apple even if it hurts its own consumer products. For instance, Microsoft licensed the Exchange technology to Apple and Google even though it likely hurt Windows Mobile/Windows Phone growth. Wonder if they regret that now…

Image Credit: Amit Chattopadhyay

Andrew is a geek, Apple enthusiast, blogger and coffee lover from Chicago.