RadControls for Windows Phone 7 Are Here - So Now What?

Now that the official release of RadControls for Windows Phone 7 has shipped, we have been seeing a few questions from both current and potential customers around what is coming next and what to expect from the suite now that it is official.  Luckily, I’ve got some answers for you!

First up, now that the suite is official, the official “free lunch” with the RadControls for Windows Phone 7 is officially over.  What does that mean, you might ask?  As it turns out, during both the CTP and both Betas of the WP7 suite we had tons of developer interest, so much so that we offered a go-live license with both the CTP and Beta for use in the Windows Phone Marketplace.  This meant that thousands of developers who downloaded our pre-release controls found them to be not only have great performance and to be feature rich, they were ready for prime time!  How often can you say that for a CTP or Beta?  If you don’t believe me, head on over to the Telerik Windows Phone 7 Showcase page in which we highlight all of the applications currently on the Marketplace using the Telerik suite.  The surprise here?  The first 15 apps that made it into the showcase were all using pre-release versions of the controls.  How’s that for Telerik quality!

But wait, we’re not leaving you hanging!  Right now we’re offering special introductory pricing for the RadControls for Windows Phone 7.  Currently you can pick yourself up a developer license for the low price of $99, while a license with subscription and priority support will only set you back $149.  When you do the math, that comes to $5 per control for the developer license or $7.50 per control for the full subscription version, meaning you could skip a latte a day for twenty days and have paid off your license.  How long will this pricing last?  We’re not sure yet (the sales team never tells me these things), but rest assured we will let you know well in advance when this introductory pricing is going to be ending.

Of course, you can still get the RadControls for Windows Phone 7 for free.  How’s that work?  We’re running a promotion with Microsoft and PreEmptive solutions which allows you to get, for free, Telerik RadControls for Windows Phone 7, PreEmptive Runtime Intelligence for Windows Phone, and $100 for your local user group.  Follow this link for more details on how this promotion works and what you would need to do in order to get your free software.

Now I’ve covered both pricing and licensing questions, but for all of you developers with Marketplace aspirations you must be thinking “Show me the code!”.  If you have a Windows Phone 7 handset, check out the Marketplace and you can download our official sample application to see just how well our controls perform live on your device.  If not, head on over to our Windows Phone 7 page where you can download both a trial and the same demo application, complete with code for all demos.  And those demos are made by the same developers who wrote the suite, so you can rest assured you’ll be seeing some great examples of how to use the controls in real scenarios.

And of course, since we’re Telerik, we don’t just stop at offering the most comprehensive Windows Phone 7 control suite out there.  Be sure to check out Telerik TV for some great Getting Started videos (more in production now) as well as links to our previous Windows Phone webinars.  We’re also going to see our WP7 suite featured in… oh wait, can’t say (silly NDA’s), but be sure to keep an eye out in the May timeframe for something kind of neat.

Last but certainly not least, if you happen to be at Mandalay Bay in the April 12-14 timeframe, be sure to check out the Telerik folks as we’re MIX’ing up some interesting things to show you.  If you’re not going to be at MIX, fear not, we’re working on a second webinar series starting in the April timeframe to further accelerate your Windows Phone 7 development with the Telerik RadControls for Windows Phone 7.

@EvanHutnick

P.S.- In case you haven’t been watching the Telerik blogs, today my colleague Valio started posting about an awesome showcase/example/learning application that the Telerik WP7 team is developing to help teach you about the controls, the platform, and some best practices.  If you haven’t started reading this series, begin on this blog post and thank me for sending you there when you are done