PreEmptive Solutions is working with Microsoft to retool its Dotfuscator analytics solution to gather Windows Phone 7 application usage data that developers can use to prioritize feature delivery.
PreEmptive announced that it would be releasing an update to Dotfuscator Professional before the end of 2010. It will arrive before Windows Phone 7 is out, said CEO Gabriel Torok at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference held in Washington, D.C. on July 12.
Microsoft is seeding its development partners with Windows Phone 7 devices beginning in July. The platform features an interface called “Metro,” which exposes application notifications through tiles on the phone’s desktop.
Perhaps more significantly, it introduces a new application runtime that is based on Silverlight 3 with some elements of Silverlight 4 included. Native Windows CE applications will no longer run on the platform.
Dotfuscator already instruments .NET and Silverlight applications, but PreEmptive had to make adjustments to support the new runtime, Torok said. It also built a RESTful service layer to integrate application data with back-end business information.
That capability helps developers track how mobile applications are being used in comparison to Web applications by integrating the usage data with data from existing line-of-business applications, Torok explained. For example, developers can take an expense report application and look at whether the actual submissions of expenses are quicker or more accurate than before, he explained.
Developers can also create customer experience improvement programs to justify or prioritize application investments based on users’ behavior and feature adoption, Torok said.
