Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shocked folks at a recent event in Australia by confirming rumors that the Redmond giant would soon be following the Apple business model of opening an App Store to offer Windows Mobile programs direct to customers. Ballmer went on to confuse the audience with his contention that the Apple App Store is not making any developers much money:
"[They’ve] made it easier to kind of get exposure for yourapplications," Ballmer continued. "There’s not much money being made,but the general concept of giving developers a way not only to gettheir code distributed, but to really get visibility for the code, is agood idea."
Last I heard Apple was selling programs hand-over-fist and developers were indeed making a fair coin for their efforts so I think Ballmer is down-playing that a little bit. At the end of the day a Microsoft App Store will not make a bit of difference anyway. There are already a number of retail outlets for Windows Mobile wares so this will just be another one. Unlike the Apple App Store, which was the first and only outlet for iPhone apps, there is no compelling reason for WM customers to only shop at the MS store. Let’s face it the ONLY place you can buy iPhone apps is the Apple App Store so they have a built-in advantage over this MS store. That’s kind of the business model, isn’t it?
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