Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) introduced Windows Azure Toolkits for Devices, promising developers the resources to leverage the cloud to accelerate their application builds. Available now for iOS and Windows Phone 7, with Android coming soon, the free toolkits enable developers to use cloud services as a back-end to support common requirements like device notifications, authentication, storage and leaderboards--according to Microsoft, developers can also enhance performance by writing client code optimized for each platform.
Windows Azure Toolkit for iPhone (v1.0) touts Azure platform-based app creation without intimate knowledge of Microsoft tools like Visual Studio. The toolkit includes compiled iPhone code libraries to interact with Windows Azure, a sample iOS application, documentation, and a "Cloud Ready" Windows Azure deployment package. Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone (v1.2) touts integration with the Windows Azure Access Control Service (e.g., a wizard, automatic setup, tooling and code), full support for Windows Azure Storage Queues and an updated user interface for the supporting web app.
Microsoft is also releasing a "Cloud Ready" package for the toolkit. "This package is designed to allow someone to quickly get started using Windows Azure without having to open and modify the services," explains Microsoft senior director of platform strategy Jamin Spitzer on The Official Microsoft Blog. Links to access the toolkits are here.
For more:
- read this Official Microsoft Blog entry
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