Microsoft Corp., struggling to dent the dominance of Apple Inc. and Google Inc. in the smartphone market, is stepping up efforts to court app makers like Hemi Weingarten.
Last fall, Microsoft representatives aggressively recruited Mr. Weingarten to convince him to build his nutrition app Fooducate for Microsoft's Windows Phone. Microsoft proposed putting a Fooducate engineer in Tel Aviv through a week-long Windows Phone bootcamp, and offered a new Windows Phone-based Nokia Corp. device for software testing.
Yet despite the enticements, Fooducate skipped the bootcamp and chose not to develop a Windows Phone app. "We decided to focus our energies on the bigger platforms" of Apple's iPhone and Google's Android, said Mr. Weingarten, the 41-year-old chief executive of Fooducate.
His experience highlights how Microsoft is actively trying to woo developers to the Windows Phone—as well as the hurdles the software maker faces in getting app makers on board.
A man walks past a banner of a Windows phone at the Mobile World Congress, the world's largest mobile phone trade show, in Barcelona, Spain, in February.
Last year, Microsoft hosted more than 850 sessions worldwide to coach developers on Windows Phone software design, more than triple the number the year before. Microsoft also has sped up the process of launching apps, expanded ways app makers can make money from selling their wares on Windows Phone and cut checks to some developers to help pay for apps.
Apple and Google also regularly cozy up to app makers. For example, Google said it recently began offering online classes and a training site for building apps. But developers say the scale of Microsoft's efforts is unprecedented.
Microsoft is desperate to break the stranglehold of iPhone and Android. Its 18-month-old Windows Phone, which powers devices made by Nokia and Samsung Electronics Co., has just a 3.9% share of smartphones in the U.S., compared with 50.1% for phones powered by Google's Android software and 30.2% for Apple's iPhone, according to comScore Inc.
Apps are a major attraction for smartphone buyers, but there are only about 70,000 available to Windows Phone owners, compared with a half a million or more for phones powered by Google's Android software and Apple's iPhone.
On a recent day, of 60 top iPhone apps, only 13 were also available for Windows Phone. The holdouts included popular apps such as Zynga Inc.'s Scrabble-like "Words With Friends" and Pandora Media Inc.'s digital-music service.
"Some of those apps I wish we have," said Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft's Windows Phone business who added that Windows Phone has alternative apps that parallel missing favorites such as Pandora. In some cases, he said, "we have a different brand that's better."
To promote that brand, the Redmond, Wash., company plans a significant marketing push soon of its Windows Phone devices to give developers reasons to create apps for the devices, Mr. Myerson said, though he declined to give details. The Windows Phone group recently hired an advertising executive behind Verizon Wireless's "Can You Hear Me Now" campaign.
Microsoft, Nokia and AT&T Inc. also are each starting significant marketing campaigns for the new Lumia 900 handset. This Nokia-made phone, which goes on sale Sunday, will be a key test of consumer demand for Windows Phone-powered devices.
"What we need to do is go invest in telling the Windows Phone story to people around the world...and we haven't done that," Mr. Myerson said. "When that is achieved, it will start a virtuous cycle with developers."
Plenty of developers doubt Microsoft can catch up to Google and Apple. They also say they're reluctant to commit to Windows Phone until Microsoft clarifies whether apps will work with future software releases, including Windows 8, the next computer operating system expected this year for desktops and tablets.
But many developers say Microsoft does have an edge when it comes to dedicated support. The company's app tools are easy to use, they say, and Microsoft is more attentive than are Apple, Google and others. Jake Poznanski and Sam Kaufmann, who quit their software-developer jobs last fall to develop Windows Phone apps, said Microsoft responded within a couple of days when they complained about a snag in Windows Phone's mobile advertising system.
Mr. Poznanski said when he reached out to Amazon.com Inc. about question with a try-before-buying feature of that company's app store, Amazon never got back to him. Amazon declined to comment on specific conversations with developers, but the company said it has a team of people dedicated to answering developer inquiries from developers.
Microsoft also is incorporating input from app developers into Windows Phone updates. In recent months, Microsoft said it was opening Windows Phone app sales in more than a dozen countries including China. Microsoft also has followed other app companies in paying developers upwards of $100,000, or paying a third-party company to develop a Windows Phone app on their behalf.
Some developers are starting to buy in to Microsoft, in part because they are growing disenchanted with struggling BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. (A RIM spokeswoman said "There has been a clear commitment from BlackBerry to developers.")
The Weather Channel said starting in November, it reassigned employees designing software for Blackberry to Windows Phone apps. Cameron Clayton, Weather Channel's executive vice president of digital, said just under 10% of the company's 100,000 daily app downloads are now coming from Windows Phone, up from less than 0.5% three months ago as Weather Channel inked deals to come pre-loaded on some Windows Phone devices.
"Versus a year ago, [Microsoft has] a shot now," Mr. Clayton said of Microsoft. At the same time, he conceded, "This is a war for developers time and attention, and Apple and Android are winning."
—Will Connors contributed to this article. Write to Shira Ovide at shira.ovide@wsj.com and Ian Sherr at ian.sherr@dowjones.com
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