Microsoft poaching iPhone developers for Zune HD?
Battle is joined as Microsoft goes shopping
We all know of Microsoft’s plans to take on the might of the iPhone with its Zune HD. It’s a serious piece of hardware, make no mistake, but the war will be won not on hardware. It's software that will decide the outcome, and in that regard the iPhone has a massive headstart.
As such, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear rumours of Microsoft trying to tempt iPhone app developers over to their side using their one outstanding advantage over Apple - cold hard cash.
Over on his Daring Fireball blog, writer John Gruber reveals that he has been contacted by “the developer of an iPhone Twitter client” who saw his post on the upcoming Microsoft media player. According to Gruber’s source, he had been contacted by Microsoft to port over his app for “a bucket of money.”
Both Gruber and his source believe that this was part of a wider campaign on Microsoft’s part to woo developers over from iPhone development to the new unit. It was unsuccessful in this instance, as Gruber's source told Microsoft to do one.
Well, they were probably a little more polite than that, but they said ‘no’ anyway.
