BANGALORE, INDIA: There is no doubt that smartphones are quickly becoming an important tool for businesses.

Though there is too much talk about Apple iOS, Google Android, and Blackberry RIM when it comes to app development, Microsoft has a great environment in Visual Studio.

Before we start talking about developing apps, let us focus on three components of a typical smartphone that decides its success or failure: hardware, application, and app store.

There is not much one can talk about hardware when developers are kept in mind, but to give a hint about future we would soon see smartphones with multi core processors.

Developing apps for Windows Phone 7

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The Windows Phone Application Platform enables developers to create apps for Windows Phone. It is built upon existing Microsoft tools and technologies such as Visual Studio, Expression Blend, SilverLight, and the XNA Framework. This application provides two frameworks for developing apps: the Silverlight framework for event-driven, XAML-based application development and the XNA Framework for loop-based games. A developer while developing apps for Windows phone gets everything at one place i.e. API's, run time services and marketplace.

App store

If you want to develop and sell applications for Windows Phone 7 then you have a online marketplace to do so. Microsoft app store might not be as popular than iOS or Android but there are lots of business phones that still run on Windows and with the launch of latest Windows Phone 7 platform, there is a lot of traction around app store. One point to keep in mind is that to submit your application you have to register yourself and Microsoft would charge you a registration fee. Microsoft took this step to ensure that only serious developers are involved keeping amateurs away.