Microsoft and webOS developers: the courtship begins

You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

Inevitably, Microsoft has moved in to woo rudderly webOS developers after HP moved to close down its hardware operation last week.

Athough HP says it's still committed to the platform, just not making its own devices based on it, this hasn't stopped rivals swooping.

Specifically Microsoft, which would like to see WinPho 7 rise from its current fourth position behind iOS, Android and arguably BlackBerry and become a viable phone OS for app makers.

Earlier this week, Brandon Watson, Senior Director of Windows Phone 7 development, targeted webOS developers with an offer of free Windows Phone training and devices.

He claims to have had nearly 1,000 email responses, and said "we didn’t expect this level of response, so we were caught a bit flatfooted."

Microsoft has now arranged a 2 day, live, streamed training event about how to build apps for Windows Phone and many more developer outreach ideas.

The full text of this is available on winrumours.