The ChevronWP7 Labs which allowed hobbyist developers to unlock Windows Phones, stopped handing out unlock token for Windows Phones in early January. Now, ChevronWP7 Labs officially closing down after selling $90,000 worth of unlock tokens in about 2 months from November last year.
According to ChevronWP7 blog post:
The goal of this experiment was two-fold: First, to determine if we could supercharge the Windows Phone beginner/hobbyist community by removing the initial cost barrier (i.e. App Hub membership.) And second, to convert potential developers into published developers.
While we kicked butt on the former, the latter didn’t work out so well. Our data indicates that most developers simply unlocked their devices for non-developmental reasons and never went all the way to publish an app in the marketplace. There was also some confusion about the actual purpose of the ChevronWP7 service – some folks thought we provided SIM-unlock capabilities, while others thought we were a hacker group providing full root access. On top of this, there were a larger than expected number of support emails.
As a result, both sides amicably agreed to discontinue the ChevronWP7 Labs experiment.
On a positive note, current customers will get a one year membership to Microsoft's App Hub - the only legit way to unlock your Windows Phone.
Source:- ChevronWp7 Labs
