Forget Brandon Watson’s official title at Microsoft. He’s the man who’s echoing Steve Ballmer’s “Developers, developers, developers” anthem in the Windows Phone space. His team is responsible to build the platform, one developer at a time.
Several times Brandon would reach out to developers and ISVs on Twitter and at events and help them ramp up to Windows Phone platform. He’s speaking at events, giving away interviews on blogs and podcasts, and being there for everything #wp7dev.
The other day, IM+ folks posted about their rough and unprofessional experience with RIM to get the app approved on the BlackBerry AppWorld. Reading the post, Brandon reached out to the team with an interest to provide them resources to assist them to develop, optimize, and merchandise their app on Windows Phone platform.
IM+ team, my name is Brandon Watson and I am responsible for developers on Windows Phone. I was looking at your app on our Marketplace after reading this post. You have had a large number of reviews, and it’s clear you have an empassioned customer base who cares about your app. We want to invest in making your app even better for Windows Phone. We have resources to assist developers in ensuring their apps perform great, look great, and ultimately get merchandising in the store.
This isn’t one-off. In the past, he talked about the connections he’s building on his blog, and illustrated a similar example.
Microsoft has forever been known for a rich developer ecosystem, and has shown deep commitment in the community and evangelism. The quick scaling of the number of apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace is a testimony to that and the great work done by Mr. Watson and his team.
