Boy, Microsoft sure seems to have learned its lesson this time around. Windows Azure is growing from strength to strength not just as a platform, but the platform is now getting more open and accommodating.
The company recently launched the Azure Mobile Services cloud backend for mobile services. It initially only came with support for Windows 8, but the team was swift to add iOS and Windows Phone 8 support.
Now Android users can also connect their apps to Azure Media Services and do everything o it — from using the platform to store structured data to user authentications and push notifications.
The ever dependable Scott Guthrie detailed shared the news along with several simple tips to help users get started. A more detailed tutorial is available here.
Microsoft’s very own Channel 9 also features a video overview of the new tools, well worth a look.
The Android SDK (developed by the new Microsoft Open Technologies team) is now available on GitHub, and the company says it is looking forward to community contributions. In order to enable push notifications, developers will still obviously have to sign up for Google’s Cloud Messaging service.
This is a very interesting development considering the amount of sheer success Android enjoys the world over, and the exclusive apps available for the mobile operating system.
While Redmond is not as showy when it comes to sharing numbers for its Windows Azure platform, this could finally sway a lot of users to its cloud, particularly mobile app developers.
