[Windows Phone 7 General] Chainfire:
To be honest, there are quite a number of professional developers here that do know. Microsoft folks themselves have posted various times how long it took them to implement this and that before as well, you can use those numbers to base estimates on even if you aren't a prodev.

Furthermore, those of us who have extensive experience in working with Microsoft's mobile division, can tell you excessive horror stories just about how terrible they really are. Things have seemed to be improving a BIT for WP7, but not MUCH.

For example I could tell you how absurdly many problems there have been with the developer side of Marketplace for WM6. Their databases continuously corrupted. Apps simply disappeared left and right from the Marketplace without warning. Certifications failed often, and I don't mean the Q&A by MS, but literally the signing of the final CAB with a certificate, causing the applications to be stuck in the queue for weeks. Their reporting (how many people downloaded my apps and how much did I earn) features often do not work for weeks on end. Every single time they update any single thing of developer dashboard for Marketplace, it rains errors for days and you're not able to do anything. The list goes on and on and on. MS support half the time does not respond at all, and problems takes ages to fix, if they are fixed AT ALL. Not to mention the dashboard really does work like crap if you have over 10 apps listed in 20 languages and 2 different versions (smartphone and pocketpc).

This is just one example area :) Is it any wonder a large group of WM developers have completely lost heart with MS ? Do you know how much time and money MS has lost for developers ?

No, sorry, I cannot possible trust that Microsoft is even remotely able to do anything right. Everybody makes mistakes, and no software is perfect, however the sheer amount of epic fail that Microsoft constantly displays is just beyond compare. And some - though definitely not all - of their decisions regarding WP7 fall into that category.

It is exactly that attitude I find disturbing. Indeed, if your phone works perfectly and as expected, you don't need ANY extra applications. It is a hyperbole, but I'm sure you get the point. The sheer audacity of claiming to know better than the customer what the customer does and does not want or need is simply mindbaffling. You cannot possible determine beforehand which case does and does not warrant this functionality.

These apps do innovate, and it us not uncommon for these apps to end up in the OS... Ultimately, not allowing these sorts of applications makes the phone less useful for all customers. That isn't to such that it will sell more or less. Those two aren't usually directly related.

Well, I haven't made the list for a while, but of the 10 most revenue generating applications on WM6, no less than 7 (I think it was) were impossible to remake for WP7. That does probably say something about developer appreciation.

Desktop and game developers couldn't be happier though. I can understand that. MS has mostly completely ditched the specialized mobile developers in favor of the desktop developers.

Even in the smartphone industry, MS' WP7 will not be significant until it is supported worldwide. Which won't be for quite a while. Remember that the USA isn't actually that important a market in the mobile world. On the other hand, for app developers, the USA is big because Americans tend to buy apps more than other nationalities. Also, MS requires each app to be translated to the native language to be sold in that country, which makes English markets relatively important.