Microsoft Canada starts Developer Movement, shows USA how to do it

Though as a graphic designer by training, I'm not exactly keen on promoting contests to produce results in workers, it does seem like a pretty awesome idea here as Microsoft tries to push developers to make awesome apps for their platforms (including but not limited to Xbox360 and Windows Phone) up in Canada. What you've got here is a "Join the Developer Movement" contest in which Microsoft judges your developed apps as "quality", and depending on how many you've got made until May 20th, you get rewards galore! Not only that, the first 200 people who register for the Developer Movement have the chance to get their AppHub account waived entirely!

Though it's not entirely clear what constitutes a "quality" application in Microsoft's mind, the contest is clear enough: depending on if you create 1, 2, or 3 of these so-called quality apps, you get sweet prizes. You've got between when you've signed up and May 20th, 2011, to get your business in order, and a sweet apps you shall make. Have a peek at the full prize list right here:

Publish 1 Quality app:


- Select a reward below:


- A Kinect™ Sensor for Xbox 360®


- 10,000 Microsoft Points


- Monster® Beats™ Headphones


- A 1TB External HD

Publish 2 Quality apps:


- Select a reward below:


- A Windows® Phone 7


- A $500 Gift Voucher


- 35,000 Microsoft Points


- An Xbox 360® with


- Kinect Bundle

Publish 3 Quality apps:


- Your apps will be considered by our judges for publicity across:


- The Xbox Newsletter


- The Xbox Live Dashboard


- MSDN Website


- MSDN Flash Newsletter


- Canadian Developer Blog

You've got to head on over to http://www.developermovement.com/ to get all the details, and know this: if you've never developed an application before, now's the time to start. They provide you will a full toolkit and one whole big batch of inspirational materials to get you started and who knows? You might hit gold with that perfect combination no-one else had the time to think of!