Michal Marek [youtube id=”j3ZLphVaxkg” width=”620″ height=”350″]
The BUILD conference is an annual Microsoft event where the company presents its software innovations. This year, he stands in the center of the action Windows 10. As part of Build, the main men of the Redmond technology company, led by Satya Nadella, revealed a little more about the plans related to the upcoming universal operating system and the services connected to it. They also presented the concept of the Office package as a whole platform and also came up with a plan to solve the problem of the lack of modern applications for the Windows platform and especially Windows Phone.
The first significant news is that Microsoft is opening its office package to third-party developers, and Office will thus receive the possibility of expansion and advanced integration of alternative applications. This also applies to the Office package for iOS, for which Microsoft clearly demonstrated the so-called "add-ins" on the iPhone 6 and iPad directly on stage. They should probably see the same opening as well Office 2016 for Mac, which users have been able to try in open beta for a long time. An example of an extension of Office applications is, for example, the ability to order a ride with Uber and the like directly from an event in Outlook.
According to Nadella, Microsoft's goal is to make Office a productivity platform that doesn't require you to constantly switch between applications to get something done. The company's vision is to simply and productively use Office and a whole range of services connected to it, regardless of what device you are currently working on.
The second big news is Microsoft's completely new approach to the problem of the lack of applications for Windows Phone. The Redmond giant has introduced a unique tool that will help developers easily convert apps from iOS and Android to Windows 10 compatible. The Visual Studio tool, which is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, will allow iOS developers to use Objective-C code and quickly create an app compatible with Windows 10.
Terry Myerson from Microsoft demonstrated the new product right on stage, using Visual Studio to convert an iPad application to a Windows 10 application. With Android applications, the situation is even simpler in a way. Windows 10 contains the "android subsystem" and supports both Java and C++ codes. Microsoft wants to easily and quickly solve the main shortcoming of the Windows Phone system, which is primarily the lack of applications.
Microsoft's plan is very ambitious and looks promising. However, the news also brings a whole range of questions. We will see how emulated applications will work on cheap Lumias, which make up the vast majority of Windows Phones sold so far. In the case of Android applications, the use of applications requiring a Google account is still problematic. They do not work in emulated form, which is a problem that Blackberry users have been facing for a long time.
The problem can also be that, in the case of iOS applications, conversion is only possible from Objective-C. However, Apple is now making a big push to push the more modern Swift programming tool introduced at last year's WWDC.
