Earlier this week HP announced the demise of WebOS, which shocked many around the world, as well as taking a major chunk out of their stock price. Microsoft is attempting to give developers of the platform some comfort by offering them free resources and training, as well as Windows Phone devices.
Brandon Watson, Windows Phone evangelist tweeted yesterday:
To Any Published WebOS Devs: We'll give you what you need to be successful on #WindowsPhone, incl.free phones, dev tools, and training, etc. than a minute ago via web 
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Brandon Watson
BrandonWatson
The response has been extremely positive, with Brandon receiving hundreds of replies within hours. Not only has it attracted users that developed for the platform, even staff from HP are jumping ship, asking to get onboard. A user by the name of "dandyhighwayman" on Twitter asked Brandon if the offer "include[s] the engineers who worked on WebOS?"
In addition to this, Watson also tweeted that the "outreach was going well" and that he had been contacted by a Palm developer relationship person who wanted a job, and he was looking forward to talking to him about it. He also said that within 8 hours he had received over 200 emails from WebOS related users and employees.
It appears Microsoft is attempting to gain as many developers as they can, even if it means using unconventional methods. Windows Phone 7 "Mango" is about to be released to the public, after it went RTM a few weeks ago, and more applications for the platform can only mean good things.
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