The following is a post from Steve Guggenheimer,Microsoft's Corporate Vice President and Chief Evangelist, Developer & Platform Evangelism.
In the past year, we’ve introduced an assortment of new opportunities to build incredible apps and experiences on Windows, and developers all over the world have taken advantage of it. Just look at the last few weeks - we’ve seen great apps like Twitter on Windows 8 and Pandora on Windows Phone 8 as great examples of developers really taking advantage of the platform in a way that users love. But we're also seeing users increasingly expect their experiences on multiple screens, and Skulls of the Shogun is a great example of how Windows is the best place for developers to capitalize on the opportunity.
And the opportunity is big: we saw more than 100 million downloads from the Windows Store in the first two months after GA, we crossed the 1 billion downloads mark in the Windows Phone Store, we saw a doubling of Windows Azure compute usage in just the last six months and much more. And developers are taking notice.
To make sure everyone knows what we’re planning and can participate in this rapidly growing ecosystem, I’m pleased to announce and personally invite you to our next developer conference, Build 2013, which is taking place June 26-28, 2013 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. It’s been a while since our last developer event in the Bay Area, and we’re looking forward to a fantastic gathering. Save the date and mark your calendar for the opening of registration next week, at 9 a.m. PT on Tuesday, April 2 at www.buildwindows.com.
At Build, we’ll share updates and talk about what’s next for Windows, Windows Server, Windows Azure, Visual Studio and more. Build is the path to creating and implementing your great ideas, and then differentiating them in the market. Pay a visit to www.buildwindows.com, get yourself registered on April 2, and join us for three days of immersive presentations delivered by the engineers behind our products and services, while networking with thousands of other developers getting the first look at what’s next. We’ll look forward to seeing you at Moscone.