{"id":4326,"date":"2011-05-10T14:27:05","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T13:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/4326-microsofts-azure-toolkit-for-apple-ios-and-android-is-a-start-but-nothing-like-enough.html"},"modified":"2011-05-10T14:27:05","modified_gmt":"2011-05-10T13:27:05","slug":"microsofts-azure-toolkit-for-apple-ios-and-android-is-a-start-but-nothing-like-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/4326-microsofts-azure-toolkit-for-apple-ios-and-android-is-a-start-but-nothing-like-enough.html","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft\u2019s Azure toolkit for Apple iOS and Android is a start, but nothing like enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft \u2018s Jamin Spitzer has announced<\/a> toolkits for Apple iOS, Google Android and Windows Phone, to support its Azure cloud computing platform.<\/p>\n

I downloaded<\/a> the toolkit for iOS and took a look. It is a start, but it is really only a toolkit for Azure storage, excluding SQL Azure. <\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What would I hope for from an iOS toolkit for Azure? Access to SQL Server in Azure would be useful, as would a client for WCF (Windows Communication Foundation). In fact, I would suggest that the WCF RIA Services<\/a> which Microsoft has built for Silverlight and other .NET clients has a more useful scope than the Azure toolkit; I realise it is not exactly comparing like with like, but most applications built on Azure will be .NET applications and iOS lacks the handy .NET libraries.<\/p>\n

A few other observations. The rich documentation for WFC RIA Services is quite a contrast to the Doxyfile docs for the iOS toolkit and its few samples, though Wade Wegner has a walkthrough<\/a>. One comment asks reasonably enough why the toolkit does not use a two or three letter prefix for its classes, as Apple recommends<\/a> for third-party developers, in order to avoid naming conflicts caused by Obective C\u2019s lack of namespace support.<\/p>\n

The development tool for Azure is Visual Studio, which does not run on a Mac. Microsoft offers a workaround: a Cloud Ready Package<\/a> which is a pre-baked Azure application; you just have to amend the configuration in a text editor to point to your own storage account, so developers without Visual Studio can get started. That is all very well; but I cannot imagine that many developers will deploy Azure services on this basis.<\/p>\n

I never know quite what to make of these little open source projects that Microsoft comes up with from time to time. It looks like a great start, but what is its long-term future? Will it be frozen if its advocate within Microsoft happens to move on? <\/p>\n

In other words, this looks like a project, not a strategy.<\/p>\n

The Windows Azure Tools for Eclipse<\/a>, developed by Soyatec and funded by Microsoft, is another example. I love the FAQ:<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This sort of presentation says to developers: Microsoft is not serious about this, avoid. <\/p>\n

That is a shame, because a strategy for making Azure useful across a broad range of Windows and non-Windows clients and devices is exactly what Microsoft should be working on, in order to compete effectively with other cloud platforms out there. A strategy means proper resources, a roadmap, and integration into the official Microsoft site rather than quasi-independent sites strewn over the web.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft \u2018s Jamin Spitzer has announced toolkits for Apple iOS, Google Android and Windows Phone, to support its Azure cloud computing platform. I downloaded the toolkit for iOS and took a look. It is a start, but it is really only a toolkit for Azure storage, excluding SQL Azure. What would I hope for from … Continue reading Microsoft\u2019s Azure toolkit for Apple iOS and Android is a start, but nothing like enough<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,19,26,55,67,80,97],"tags":[185,267,499,586],"class_list":["post-4326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-net","category-apple","category-cloud-computing","category-development","category-microsoft","category-professional","category-software-development","category-windows","tag-azure","tag-cloud-computing","tag-ios","tag-microsoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}