What if universal apps on Windows 10 stopped developers from making apps?!

[TechAbstract]

How do you know it won't work other way around? Android is similar to Windows on PC. Google and Microsoft release the OS, the OEMs do their job of selling and promoting their hardware. Lumia 520/521 and Lumia 635 sell decently not because they lack apps or anything else but because they are cheap and available on more carriers. Microsoft will have to get more phones out to the carriers if they want to gain market share either by releasing those phones themselves or with the help of the OEMs. Almost all new phones coming out are Android with so much options to choose from for the consumers. Not so much for Windows Phone users. Microsoft will have to promote the platform better if no OEM is doing it.

 

[a5cent]

How do you know it won't work other way around?

Because history has proven over a dozen times that a centrally managed/controlled economy never works. In your example you can replace MS with any eastern European country, the USSR, or a dozen other failed communist states that tried to control their economy and have it successfully compete with capitalism. That is doomed to fail.
Is it not obvious that such OEMs would never view it as their goal to sell WP devices? Their actual goal would be to exert the least amount of effort possible while still being able to cash MS' (in case of communism the government's) check! That is what any such effort would be about.
Given that these same OEMs would simultaneously be competing tooth&nail with each other over a larger chunk of the Android pie, people just won't be stupid enough to not notice where those companies are truly invested.
This not theoretical. The WP ecosystem already perfectly demonstrates this, or why do you think HTC and Samsung don't do very well in the WP space? You're asking/hoping for that same ineffective model to be effective in an even more competitive Android space. It's a pipedream. As long as there are alternatives, the markets will reject those devices in the same way HTC and Samsung devices are largely ignored.
Governments couldn't do it. Neither can corporations. Neither can MS. It always fails. It never works. It's just not possible to force companies to effectively compete and innovate over scraps that are not worth competing over.
The only reason some Indian brands are trying WP is because MS is allowing them to slap a case and their branding on a reference hardware design, with a free OS, and also promising freedom from IP licensing costs. If those OEMs had to design the phone themselves none of them would be releasing WP devices. That won't win against Android where devices are designed and built to compete and stand out.
Economics 101. Demand must come first. Only then will a competitive and viable supply chain follow.

 

[TechAbstract]

Economics 101. Demand must come first. Only then will a competitive and viable supply chain follow.

There is no demand if no one is promoting Windows Phone.

 

[grantpwarren]

What is Microsoft planning to do with non-universal apps, maybe wipe apps off if developers don't comply to be universal?

 

[a5cent]

There is no demand if no one is promoting Windows Phone.

And like I said, no OEM besides MS promotes them. Either MS pays for HTC's or Samsung's WP marketing, or they aren't marketed at all.

Without special deals, those phones are not even built. I can only repeat myself, by saying those phones are not built to sell phones in large numbers. Those devices are built to get special deals from MS. Based on low sales expectations, no OEM is willing to spend large on marketing that they figure has no chance of being recouped through device sales.
If the assumption of more OEMs = more advertising dollars for WP were true, then I'd agree. It's not. Never was, and won't be anytime soon.

Remove that misconception, and it becomes hard to explain exactly what benefit HTC, Samsung, etc bring to the table. They are not even competitive in the WP space. There is zero reason to believe they will succeed at selling WP devices to Android and iOS shoppers, when they can barely sell their WP devices to WP fans.

 

[a5cent]

What is Microsoft planning to do with non-universal apps, maybe wipe apps off if developers don't comply to be universal?

Absolutely not. MS is not planning to do anything with them. Non-universal apps will continue to run as they always have.
Developers will also remain free to create new apps that employ the same universal-app technologies, but run only on one or the other form factor.

 

[grantpwarren]

Absolutely not. MS is not planning to do anything with them. Non-universal apps will continue to run as they always have.
Developers will also remain free to create new apps that employ the same universal-app technologies, but run only on one or the other form factor.

Ah right okay. Shame about some good apps that are probably not going universal then.

 

[ajayden]

Below is the theory behind the push for universal apps :

Currently Microsoft has bigger market share in the PC/Tablet industry. Mobile is at 2% plus.

Developers on either platform (PC/Tablet or Mobile) do not need to develop the code again.

So, a mobile developer whose app does not have much exposure on mobile platform can use the same code (with minor changes) and release the same app in the PC/Tablet platform.

This will get the developers interested in developing for both the platforms.