

HockeyApp Joins Microsoft - davidbarker
http://hockeyapp.net/blog/2014/12/11/hockeyapp-joins-microsoft.html

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neves
Hey, the business reason to buy it is clear. Nobody develops for Windows
Phone, but everybody has the burden to develop for two plataforms: iOS and
Android. If MS lower the burden and automatically makes it very, very easy to
develop for Windows Phone, they will finally have some decent software in
their plataform.

~~~
bugsense
MS will buy Xamarin next. VS is free now, you will deploy your app to tester
with Hockey, test it, monitor it and then offer you Azure Mobile Services

~~~
Immortalin
MS won't buy Xamarin unless someone else is planning to buy it. They probably
have some sort of exclusive agreement to give MS priority when buying. It is
simply cheaper for MS to let Xamarin run itself than to take it under the wing
of MS.

~~~
scholia
True. Also, Xamarin/Mono already gets all kinds of crap from Linux purists and
being owned by Microsoft would probably made that worse....

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andyjohnson0
I just signed-up with HockeyApp this morning and have been very impressed with
the experience. Congratulations to the team!

Previously we'd been using TestFlight for iOS and the PLsy Store's built-in
beta-test functionality for Android, but it is convenient to have one service
that supports a range of mobile OSs and a lower-friction deployment process.

When TestFlight was bought by Apple, they fairly quickly abandoned support for
non-iOS pltforms. I'm confident that Microsoft isn't short-sighted enough to
do something similar.

~~~
NicoJuicy
Microsoft realizes it has to be cross platform... Most important change since
the new CEO arrived :)

~~~
scholia
Except that change was already well under way long before the new CEO arrived
;-)

~~~
NicoJuicy
They didn't went all in ( Office = milk cow), they did a huge shift now with
Satya Nadella.

That is a fundemental change vs. a change from the inside ( before it was
pushed because some people grasped the concept and they were allowed to try it
out)

~~~
nailer
Yeah it was shortly after Satya taking over that MS Office for iPad was
released. They'd obviously had the code there, but the authority to actually
get it out seemed to be lacking.

~~~
blumkvist
No, they just needed the new face to kick things off, so everybody can
attribute the change and believe.

EEE. Watch and learn. This is why Microsoft will never die, no matter how hard
some people's wishful thinking.

~~~
scholia
Sad but true. Ballmer could have done the same things but wouldn't have got
the same response.

It generally takes Microsoft _years_ to do things. Anyone who doesn't realize
all this stuff was already a long way down the pipeline needs hitting with a
cluestick ;-)

------
vm
Microsoft is back for acquisitions! This is good for everyone working on tech
startups.

Recent buys: Acompli - Dec 1, $200M / Aorato - Nov 13, $200M / Equivio - Oct
8, $200M / Mojang (Minecraft) - Sept 15, $2.5B

Microsft even started accepting Bitcoin today and recently did a major BD deal
with Dropbox. Zombie no more.

------
bugsense
Wow, this was unexpected, congrats to HockeyApp team! What they have built is
impressive. No VC funding, no bs, just awesome work and great community.

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thijser
It's interesting to see the consolidation in this space. HockeyApp is the #2
most used crash reporting library for Android according to our stats:
[http://www.appbrain.com/stats/libraries/tag/crash-
reporting/...](http://www.appbrain.com/stats/libraries/tag/crash-
reporting/android-crash-reporting-libraries) The #1, crashlytics, was acquired
in early 2013 by Twitter, and BugSense was acquired by Splunk.

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coldcode
Been using Beta by Crashlytics since Apple screwed up TestFlight. If MS does
continue to support iOS maybe I will switch to that.

~~~
faizmokhtar
How is your experience so far? Is it much easier? Been using Crashlytics
mainly for the crash reports, never tried anything else.

~~~
coldcode
I use it for Enterprise apps mostly to send to myself. Internally we have a
website where people can get our apps but for testing on multiple devices it's
OK. Haven't tried it on a lot of users though. TestFlight was awesome but now
it's mostly horrible once Apple made it so painful.

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filmgirlcw
Congrats to Michael and team on this! After Apple bought TestFlight and
relaunched their testing offering this year at WWDC, it was clear Hockey would
have a problem competing in the Apple device space (even though I think their
product is superior to what TestFlight was -- haven't used the new TestFlight
enough to compare).

The tools are great for users and developers and I think this will be great
for Microsoft. Glad to see it end up in good hands.

Truly a great service.

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dharma1
Also used to use Testflight when they still did Android, and signed up with
Hockey App yesterday. Hope the Microsoft acquisition doesn't mean that I'll
have to find another beta testing platform again!

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kolencherry
This is really interesting. Microsoft has HockeyApp and Apple has TestFlight.
I wonder if this is a push on their part to enhance the testing tooling
available for Windows Phone.

~~~
binarymax
Microsoft's strategy is shifting away from Windows Phone only, and is working
hard on getting their non-windows software stack on all devices. While it will
probably help windows phone tooling, Microsoft is painfully aware of the small
market share WP has compared to iOS and Android.

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maresca
I had used HockeyApp for 3 months while testing my current set of mobile apps.
I had used it to test an iPhone app and it was terribly painful. Those pains
were mostly from Apple's end though. Once I had found out Apple bought
TestFlight, I canceled my HockeyApp subscription. Does anyone have any input
on the comparison of HockeyApp and Play Store beta testing for the testing
process of android apps?

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tehcodez
Remember when Apple bought test flight? That sure worked out well for people
building apps for multiple platforms. I'm sufficiently concerned.

~~~
smackfu
I really doubt Microsoft is going to make it Windows Phone only. Windows Phone
is just not that valuable as a platform.

~~~
scholia
Windows Phone and tablet software is free as in beer ;-)

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wclax04
Congrats guys. We use HockeyApp and love it!

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woogle
I'm not sure it is a good news.

In one hand it's great to hear that Analytics will be added and cross support
is still important.

But in the other hand, it puts developers in inconfortable position. Should we
still use HockeyApp for our iOS apps? Depend on a tool owned by a concurrent
of your target platform is not so safe on a long term sight..

~~~
woogle
Why downvotes? I'm only asking questions. Yes, MS strategy is cross-plateform.
Now. But in a few years, who knows what MS goals will be?

IMO, taking 10 minutes to think about is not lost time.

~~~
andyjohnson0
Downvotes are possibly because your comment could be read as
instinctively/tribally anti Microsoft.

Yes, MS and Apple are competitors. But what would they have to gain by
shutting-down iOS support? People would just move to TestFlight (Apple owned),
which would gain MS noting at all and probably earn them some justifiable bad
feeling.

Nadela-era Microsoft is looking to be a different and more open beast than the
Gates and Balmer era company.

Edit: I didn't downvote you.

~~~
woogle
My comment would apply to any acquisition. If I'd use an analytics tool for
Facebook acquired by Twitter, I'll take 10 minutes to think about it.

I'm not anti-MS. I was one of the first to make Windows Phone apps. I like a
lot Nadela, but do you know how many time will he stay MS CEO?

As I said, MS is not only interested in Windows Phone but win a lot of money
with Android.

We probably continue to use HockeyApp but I'm not fan of the "don't ask
questions that may hurt" bashing here.

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kyberias
It wasn't easy to find out what HockeyApp actually does. Here's some
information buried in their site:

[http://support.hockeyapp.net/kb/about-general-faq/general-
qu...](http://support.hockeyapp.net/kb/about-general-faq/general-questions)

~~~
Pephers
I found it quite easy to find on the front page of their website,
[http://hockeyapp.net/features](http://hockeyapp.net/features).

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hdivider
Great news.

What I love about HockeyApp (vs TestFlight) is that I don't really have to
bother with the App Store Review Guidelines.

Makes testing much faster. Plus, they show they care when it comes to
integration: tons of help, plus a special wizard to make it easy.

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brianobush
Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with hockey...

~~~
guiomie
Ahaha. Yah I was surprised to see no relation. Or perhaps there is one that we
don't know ? I thought maybe they were a Canadian company, but they don't seem
to be...

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danabramov
HockeyApp is awesome. They're very supportive, and the tooling itself is very
good. Happy for them!

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CmonDev
I was afraid it's another of those HTML5 hybrid providers, but it's actually
something useful.

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robertwalsh0
"What browsers work with HockeyApp? We have developed and tested with Firefox,
Chrome, and Safari." Kinda funny.

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gtop
Awesome, hope they keep supporting iOS and Android distribution.

~~~
pistle
It fits nicely within the dev story around getting .net and C# running across
platforms along with the Xamarin partnership. With testflight evaporating,
this is a logical acquisition. Does it make sense to keep it open to native
devs? Sure. They can have ramps placed in front of them for using Azure and
various telemetry solutions.

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sreejithr
"When we founded our company, our intent and mission was to always stay
indie."

You sold out, dude.

~~~
Lightbody
You say it like it's some mark of shame.

They built a product, found success, a bigger company wanted it, and then
found more success via acquisition.

What's wrong with that?

~~~
_random_
He identified a strong discrepancy between their vision and their decision.
What's wrong with that?

