Edible Apple

A few days ago, Microsoft put up a series of web postings which detail one iPhone developer’s experiences in porting an iPhone app over to the Windows Mobile platform.  The underlying goal, of course, was to showcase just how simple and seamless the process is and to convince other developers to see the beauty in Windows Mobile.  And to sweeten the deal, Microsoft is also offering prizes to developers who submit top-notch applications.

Now, Gruber of DF suggests that Microsoft is now flat out bribing successful iPhone developers to port their apps over to the Zune, though there’s been no word yet on an SDK or anything.

After my post, I got an email from the developer of an iPhone Twitter client. He was contacted by Microsoft a few months ago, with an offer to port his app to the Zune in exchange for “a bucket of money”. He turned them down, but assumes, as I do, that Microsoft reached out to the developers of multiple popular iPhone apps.

My source is certain the offer was for the Zune, but because he turned it down early on, he doesn’t know the details regarding the OS or SDK. If any other iPhone developers have gotten a similar pitch from Microsoft, I’d love to hear about it.

Well if you can’t beat em’, buy em’.