Microsoft is in full court press mode trying to attract developers to its platform. The company released a new video showing how easy it is to port Android apps over to Windows with minimal rewriting of code. The effort is called "Project Astoria" and Microsoft is going all out to show how easy it is to support Windows.
Developers can drop their code into a tool on the Microsoft Developer website and get immediate feedback about how much of their code can be used. With a few tweaks, the Android app can be ported over to Windows. Microsoft claims that with one line of code a developer can switch from Google Maps to Bing Maps for their app.
If Windows Phone doesn't make a big move in market share this year, I expect Microsoft to move on. This is probably the first step in being more open to Android. After all, Microsoft makes a lot of money on Android via several licenses. Could Microsoft someday make an Android phone? Maybe, but the more likely scenario is Microsoft will be a top developer of mobile apps for all platforms but won't control their own dominant platform like they did with Windows. Those days are over.