Android developers may be surprised to learn all the similarities between developing for the Windows Phone 7 Platform and developing for the Android Platform. Mobile applications for both platforms are written in managed languages — Java for Android and C# for Windows Phone 7 — with accompanying libraries. In his Microsoft-sponsored article, Windows Phone 7 Development for Android Developers Chris Bennett walks Android developers through the similarities between the two platforms. He writes:
There are certainly differences between the .NET/Windows Phone 7 and Java/Android APIs, but since the languages are similar you should be able to save much of the logic you have built in your existing application when porting your current apps over to Windows Phone 7.
Because Java and Visual C# share a common ancestry with the C/C++ languages and bear a strong resemblance to one another, many of the differences between them are merely style related. Conversely, the differences between Android and Windows Phone 7 are mostly skin deep.