Microsoft has been a player in the mobile market for many years but steadily lost the smartphone race to more solid competitors like Apple, RIM and Google. But Microsoft’s latest mobile OS, WP7, has gotten some pretty good reviews. We at Appnomy have always believed that apps drive platform success to a huge extent. Microsoft is taking the mobile market more seriously everyday and the newest announcement that comes from Microsoft relates to the additions it will be making to its Windows Phone Marketplace. Here’s what developers need to know.
Power to the developers:
- Developers will now be able to publish apps in 19 new countries, this takes the total number of markets available to app developers to 35. Some of the new countries that have been added are India, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden and Taiwan.
- Mango apps submission registration support will be extended to India in early fall 2011.
- Advertising can be a pretty good revenue stream and Microsoft Advertising pubCenter will support Windows Phone 7 app developers in the following 18 countries by the end of 2011: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
- Multiple distribution options will be available to developers.
Beta distribution will allow developers to make their app available to a group of up to 100 access controlled beta testers for up to 90 days.
Targeted Distribution will enable you to distribute applications through Marketplace in a hidden state, where they are not discoverable via browsing or searching Marketplace. To enable targeted users to access your hidden app you simply share the deep-link to the app with the users you want to have access via e-mail, text or other mechanism. You may distribute the app as many times as you wish or even publicly publish your app whenever you like. - Along with these additions, Microsoft is providing more tools to make app development easier for developers. These include handy additions like enhanced reporting, easier app management process, new features like crash report collection and better dashboard for developers to manage their apps.
The next version of Windows phone7 (Mango) has already gathered a lot of interest from developers, we all know Microsoft is capable of making awesome software and now that they’re taking the mobile market seriously it might be a good idea to take a serious look at Windows Phone Mango app development.
Via: Appnomy.
