[MUSIC]
RAMAN KOHLI: Hey,
everybody. Welcome to Build.
We're really excited to be here
to present a session about
Windows Subsystem for Android and
what are the opportunities for mobile developers.
With me joining today,
we have Jon Kirk,
who is a Director of Content and App Partner Engagement
in Amazon. Welcome, Jon.
We also have Zarana Kiran Desai
who is a Software Engineer at Microsoft.
Welcome, Zarana. I'm Raman Kohli.
I'm the Principal PM Lead with Apps, Partners,
and Store Team within
the Windows organization at Microsoft.
Let's begin with our vision.
What has been what Microsoft's vision as part of
our store and as part of
Windows related to Windows subsystem for Android.
I want to start by saying that Windows is
the most open platform on this planet for creators.
Part of living our commitment to openness
is welcoming part of technologies
such as from Amazon as well as content from
various developers to deliver
powerful experiences for our customers.
Now, when we launched Windows 11 back in 2021,
we announced a brand new Microsoft Store.
Part of that was how we showcase
the best experiences from developers like yourselves,
including a flexible and a transparent commerce model,
as well as the introduction
of the Android apps on Windows,
which was supported through
the Windows Subsystem for Android
as well as through Amazon Appstore.
It's been an extremely rewarding experience
to build this experience
in partnership with Amazon Appstore
and with you, our developer community.
There's a ton of synergies on
both teams that have brought this product to
life and we clearly have an exciting opportunity ahead.
Jon, I want to start with you first.
What is Amazon Appstore on Windows 11?
JON KIRK: Well,
thanks. If you're not
familiar with Amazon Appstore,
it's the digital store that supports
a variety of Amazon devices from Fire TVs,
to Fire tablets, and also third-party Android devices.
We support over 200 million devices
in consumers' hands worldwide.
We're super excited about
our Windows 11 partnership because we think it presents
a sizable opportunity for
existing Android mobile developers
to reach entirely new customers.
With Microsoft's development of
the Windows Subsystem for Android,
the apps and games on Amazon Appstore are now made
available for Windows users
to download and install and play with.
So existing mobile apps can now reach PC gamers.
RAMAN KOHLI: Very exciting. I'm sure
that, our audiences,
you want to know what are some of
the investments that we at Microsoft are
making to making the WSA platform great for end users,
and of course also for a developers.
I do want to start as always touching earlier about
the Microsoft Store that, first of all,
all the Android applications that
we get from the Amazon Appstore,
these are first-class citizens
within the Microsoft Store.
They're all discoverable within the store.
Just like any of
the native Windows applications
that are part of our Microsoft Store.
Also, they appear just like
our native applications as part of
our tutorials that are available in the store,
as part of search results when you search for titles,
content as part of Microsoft Store.
You will see them as part of
our inlined ratings and reviews.
In fact, you can also share direct links
to these Android applications as part of your marketing,
as well as social activities.
Some super exciting stuff that we're providing
due to our users and to developers as part of the store.
Zarana, you're part of our engineering team who's been
building these capabilities as part of our platform.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Anything else you want to add on top of this?
ZARANA KIRAN DESAI: Exactly as you said.
We want to make it as
an experience that's similar to a Windows app.
Like Android app and Windows app,
you shouldn't find any difference
while you're looking at it.
If you keep it side-by-side,
it should just be this name.
You should be able to Windows snap layouts.
You can pin them to the Start menu,
taskbar, interact with them with the mouse,
touch, pin,
and most of all you can
see Android notifications on Windows.
You can use the camera.
That's going to be a very
integrated experience and we want to
make sure it's a uniquely
integrated and native expedience for users.
So hope you like it.
RAMAN KOHLI: That's fantastic. These are
all super exciting features.
Especially from a user's point of view,
you can't tell the difference between
an Android application that's running on Windows,
on a native application running on Windows.
With that, I do want to quickly
jump to the opportunity here,
both for Microsoft as well as for Amazon.
I want to start by first saying,
as we've shared this before,
there are hundreds of millions of
users around the world that are using Windows 11,
especially as we think about
the 30 markets where we're targeting the WSA experience.
So the audience here includes anywhere from
casual gamers to students, to professionals,
to parents, and many of
other seminal roles that the use
essentially Windows PCs in their daily lives.
There's clearly an opportunity for us to reach
these wide range of audiences.
On top of this, I'm also excited
to share that, as Microsoft,
we're making a ton of investments in bringing
PC casual gaming experience to our laptops,
to PCs working with
Android game developers and
other similar gaming companies.
There's clearly a big opportunity for
developers to tap into this part of the story as well.
Jon, do you want to add your thoughts to this?
JON KIRK: I mean, we really feel
that, for developers,
it's this global audience of
highly engaged customers is really to focus.
I mean, the Amazon Appstore is currently
available in over 200 countries.
There's more than 300 million
active Amazon customers worldwide.
Then if you overlay that on top of Windows 11 growth,
the customer audience is large,
it's growing, and it's global.
RAMAN KOHLI: Now let's address this.
Who is the Amazon Appstore for Windows 11 for?
JON KIRK: Yes,
it's really for developers
out there that are
already have or are building Android games and apps.
If you're already shipping
an app to the Amazon Appstore,
then you're just a few clicks
away from potentially reaching
hundreds of millions of additional devices and customers.
If your app is not yet already
available in the Amazon Appstore
the opportunity has never been greater.
Specifically, developers that have
mobile games that can be
easily playable with a keyboard and a mouse,
that also is a segment that we think we'll
really enjoy and benefit from coming to Windows 11.
RAMAN KOHLI: Nice. I want to ask,
how's it going so far?
JON KIRK: Well,
it's still early days,
but the Amazon Appstore on Windows is, as you mentioned,
already available in more than 30 countries and we
have a catalog of more than 50,000 apps and games.
From the early data we're seeing across our top 10 games,
we've seen an average lift and engagement ranging from
as low as 50 percent to as high as
8x when compared to engagement on other devices.
What we're seeing is that
existing game customers are
using their PC in different parts of the day.
You're meeting existing customers
where they are throughout the day,
but we're also seeing that
this PC customer base as a group of new customers.
The majority of the customers that
we're seeing actually on
Windows 11 are new to the Amazon Appstore.
So we think we're enabling
mobile developers to access
an entirely new customer base as well.
RAMAN KOHLI: Lovely. I think
from a developer point of view,
we want to keep that excitement going for them.
Zarana, I really would love for you to
cover or talk to us
about what's been some of the new things,
exciting things we've introduced recently,
the new release of WSA and what's coming soon,
what should we developers be excited about?
ZARANA KIRAN DESAI: I'm really glad you asked that.
WSA has been continually getting better each month.
Thanks to the developer feedback.
Over the last year, we've made considerable investments
to improve our runtime boot performance,
graphics, as well as deepen their Windows integration.
I'm really excited to share that we've
delivered support for Android 13 on WSA,
along with our requested features like
picture-in-picture and support for app links.
Developers are our top priority for WSA.
We are listening to your feedback and making
significant investments
to bring support for file-sharing,
local network access, and most of all,
better integration with Android Studio and Visual Studio.
We have a variety of feedback channels and we
would love for your feedback to keep coming in.
For issues during app development,
we recommend using GitHub.
While for other feedbacks, use feedback up.
You can get the latest features in WSA by signing up for
Windows Subsystem for Android preview program
or the Windows Insider Program.
We communicate regularly on
our GitHub channels, so stay tuned.
RAMAN KOHLI: Awsome, and Jon?
JON KIRK: I mean,
for mobile developers,
our mission is to make building with
the Amazon Appstore as
simple and straightforward as possible.
Similar to Microsoft's investments in WSA,
we're investing in upgrading
our existing developer tools.
We're introducing new features to help engage customers.
Our product and engineering teams are focused
on just improving the developer experience.
A specific example of that is
the new input SDK
that we plan to release this next month.
It's a standardized way to educate users on how to
seamlessly mapped keyboard strokes
and mouse movements to actions in your game.
RAMAN KOHLI: Can't wait.
Sounds like a lot of
amazing investments we're making here.
I think one of the things I'm sure
our audiences that are watching
this session want to know,
how do they get engaged?
What's the call to action for them?
What do they do next?
JON KIRK: Easy.
Just head to our developer portal.
Specifically, developer.amazon.com/apps.
From there, developers can dive into
our wide breadth of documentation
for Appstore and Windows 11.
As a developer,
you can side-load your app and try it out.
Eventually, once you're ready to submit
your app to launch on the Amazon Appstore,
make sure to use our developer portal contact
form to select the Windows 11
drop-down and we'll be off and running.
RAMAN KOHLI: Lovely.
You heard, you developers,
looks like here are the call to actions for you guys.
With that, I'd like to thank this team for being here.
We're really excited to bring this session to you folks.
I hope you enjoyed,
you've taken something out of it,
that it helps you, benefits you,
and you sign up for these links
that we're sharing with you folks.
Enjoy the rest of your build and looking
forward to doing more and bringing
more announcements related to WSA in the future with
you guys along with our partners at
Amazon. Thank you, everybody.