Programmers are still ambivalent towards Windows 8, according to a new poll, piling pressure on Microsoft to win them over before it is too late. The survey found that although developers are optimistic about Redmond's promise to ensure that code written for Windows 8 will work across desktops, tablets and smartphones, there …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

Thursday 4th October 2012 14:46 GMT Mark .

Android is the largest platform!

"a large install base is their number-one criterion when picking a platform to write for"

Okay.

"With that in mind, Apple’s iOS for iPhone and iPad continues to be the top pick for developers - 85 and 83 per cent of those polled fancy those devices, respectively"

So they say that, and then choose the iphone platform that isn't, and has never been the largest userbase? Current stats are around near 70% for Android, and 15-20% for iphone. Apple has never had more than that. In the early years, it was far smaller - less than Windows Mobile at one time - yet still got supported most often. Before Android was number one, it was Symbian.

Indeed that's another counter example. Symbian was the number one platform until 2011, but seemed to get least software support. So where were these developers until then, claiming that large installed userbase was so important? Plus the installed userbase (rather than sales) of Symbian is still massive (I get 100 times the downloads on Symbian compared with Android, and there's still a lot of users out there) - possibly larger than the iphone userbase still. So come on, where's the Symbian support, if installed userbase is really the "number-one" criterion?

The usual argument for why iphone is catered for first is allegedly higher revenue, but that comes third.

Sorry, either the survey is nonsense/non-representative, or they're talking rubbish about their motivations. Or worse, they're seriously deluded as to what the actual market share situation is (which wouldn't surprise me, given the press reporting in the last 5 years). (If installed userbase is important, then whilst it's bad for Windows Phone - and iphone - it's good for Windows 8, surely...)

"With its reduced market share position and falling interest in the Windows phone platform, developers are unlikely to tolerate any missteps.”

I don't recall people ever making these criticisms of Apple in 2007, even though it applied then just as well.

15 0
1. Thursday 4th October 2012 15:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Android is the largest platform!
  
  Developers will choose the platform that makes them the most money. So iOS for paid apps and Android for ad-sponsored apps.
  
  6 0
  1. Thursday 4th October 2012 16:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: Android is the largest platform!
    
    It's also worth noting that Appcelerator (co-author of survey) started on iOS, and has a very strong following of iOS devs looking to port out their existing apps to other platforms. A quick look at their website shows not one Android device, or PC - it's Macs and iPhones everywhere a computer or a phone is shown.
    
    It's unsurprising, then, that when you survey this particular group of developers, it turns out they favour iOS.
    
    11 0
2. Thursday 4th October 2012 18:25 GMT Charlie Clark
  
  Re: Android is the largest platform!
  
  As with many such polls it suffers from the lack of "do what I do, not what I say" analysis. There's a nice technical term for this but basically it's easy to ask any group of people intelligent questions and get contradictory answers. Apple provided a good development platform with excellent support and provided a huge shop window of the apps to customers happy to spend lots of money: apps quickly replace dial tones and case mods as the way to personalise and flaunt.
  
  Microsoft should surely be able to lever the large developer base if the tools and publishing are good. Fragmentation is far less of a problem on Android than many people make out which should be both encouraging for Microsoft: the same code should indeed be able to run on WinRT and WinX86 devices and different form factors. But, because fragmentation isn't such a problem, then it is just as much an opportunity for Android developers to move to new form factors as they become available: e.g. Softmaker already has a full office suite for Android and Adobe is busy covering all its bases. The real battle will be when the first full fat Android notebooks appear.
  
  3 1
3. Thursday 4th October 2012 18:41 GMT Richard Plinston
  
  Re: Android is the largest platform!
  
  > they're talking rubbish about their motivations.
  
  You are making the mistake that you think their motivations should be based on the number of phones sold, or the total number in use, or of the revenue of those phone sales. But developers don't earn money from the sale of phones, they get it from the sales of apps, or perhaps from the usage of apps for ad-supported free ones.
  
  Apple still leads the market in that vital area:
  
  """App Annie estimates that Apple’s app revenue edge over Google is 71% to 29% worldwide."""
  
  0 5
  1. Thursday 4th October 2012 18:59 GMT h4rm0ny
    
    Re: Android is the largest platform!
    
    "You are making the mistake that you think their motivations should be based on the number of phones sold, or the total number in use, or of the revenue of those phone sales"
    
    No he isn't. Re-read his post. He is saying that the respondents to the survey said that size of the install base was the most important criterion to them. He's not saying what he thinks their motivations are, he's saying what they say their motivations are and pointing out a contradiction with other things they say.
    
    4 0
    1. Thursday 4th October 2012 20:49 GMT Richard Plinston
      
      Re: Android is the largest platform!
      
      > No he isn't. Re-read his post. He is saying that the respondents to the survey said that size of the install base was the most important criterion to them. He's not saying what he thinks their motivations are, he's saying what they say their motivations are and pointing out a contradiction with other things they say.
      
      You have misread the post, just as Mark did. He even quoted the bit he misread:
      
      "a large install base is their number-one criterion when picking a platform to write for"
      
      It says "A large base", not, as Mark later criticises them for "the iphone platform that isn't, and has never been the largest userbase?".
      
      The indefinite article and the lack of comparative or superlative indicates that it only need be large, and is not required to be the largest. There is no contradiction by the developers, only in your misreading of it.
      
      1 2
  2. Thursday 4th October 2012 19:23 GMT Mark .
    
    Re: Android is the largest platform!
    
    See what h4rm0ny says - I'm just going by what the respondants themselves claimed.
    
    The revenue claim always seemed a bit bogus to me anyway, as it doesn't explain why iphone is catered for above other platforms for even free stuff.
    
    No, it all becomes clear now - it's most supported because many people *think* it's the most popular. Even though it isn't. And I find that rather sad.
    
    5 0
    1. Thursday 4th October 2012 21:26 GMT h4rm0ny
      
      Re: Android is the largest platform!
      
      "No, it all becomes clear now - it's most supported because many people *think* it's the most popular. Even though it isn't. And I find that rather sad."
      
      That's probably true and I would probably think that too if I didn't read the El Reg forums. But is it also possible that people find writing for iOS more profitable because there is less piracy than on Android? (Note this is *not* a loaded question, it's a genuine one - I don't know about piracy levels on Android).
      
      2 2
      1. Thursday 4th October 2012 21:39 GMT Richard 12
        
        Piracy!?
        
        There is none.
        
        Ok, not quite none at all, but it's so incredibly low in the mobile app scene as to not even make the status of rounding error.
        
        If there really is a difference in revenue between the two platforms, it might be that many androids are very cheap so those are owned by people without much money, while iPhone is/was a status symbol mostly owned by people with lots of money.
        
        Thus the percentage of iPhone owners spending real money on apps is much greater than android owners.
        
        However I'm not sure that the figures actually bear that out - for our paid apps, almost identical between iOS and Android: in the USA sales are about 75% iOS and falling, while in Europe they are 50/50
        
        2 0
        
        Thursday 4th October 2012 21:59 GMT Al Jones
        
        Re: Piracy!?
        
        It's not that androids are owned by people without much money, it's that iPhones/iPads are hooked up to an iTunes account that is already attached to a credit card, or regularly topped up with iTunes Gift Cards. Android phones often aren't attached to an account with a payment method, and Google gift cards aren't as ubiquitous as iTunes Gift cards.
        
        The barrier for going from free apps to paid apps is still lower for iDevice users (because that's the way Apple designed it).
        
        0 0
        
        Thursday 4th October 2012 22:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Re: Piracy!?
        
        Not a problem?
        
        www.gamasutra.com/view/news/176214/The_Android_piracy_problem.php#.UG4RO71wbFo
        
        2 1
4. Thursday 4th October 2012 19:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  BIGGEST PROBLEM
  
  Microsoft have a habit of not updating operating systems for certain hardware, but completely rewriting the software so older devices cannot be upgraded. The uptake will be quite small at first so I suppose there will be the proverbial fart apps, beer apps, talking cat apps etc.
  
  But to make any money, which surprisingly very few apps on any platform do anyway, it will be a complete waste of time to code for Win 8.
  
  I expect Microsoft to open a new app development department and produce their own as no one else will.
  
  2 0
5. Thursday 4th October 2012 19:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Android is the largest platform!
  
  You''re making the common mistake of thinking Android is a single platform. With it's huge fragmentation problems it's effectIvely not for developers. The extra effort of having to write for different screen sizes, different hardware, different Os versions and different memory profiles can cut down your target audience massively.
  
  0 9
  1. Thursday 4th October 2012 20:33 GMT Richard Plinston
    
    Re: Android is the largest platform!
    
    > The extra effort of having to write for different screen sizes, different hardware, different Os versions and different memory profiles
    
    Whereas writing for WM6/WM6.5/WP7/WP8 was a complete joy with consistent languages, OS and API, and the fixed screen sizes of 320x480 and 800x480 make moving to Metro/Surface/WP8 a doddle. Oh wait ..
    
    4 0
Thursday 4th October 2012 14:47 GMT Anonymous Coward

I think theres another problem

Apps being able to run on both mobile & desktop is a nice idea but one has to wonder: who would care about apps on the desktop which were written with lots of restraints kept in mind? In other words: which could perform much better, if written or targeted differently ?

Ok, and it has to be said, although I'm repeating things: And how many people would actually /use/ those apps on the desktop anyway? So far Win8 isn't exactly being excitingly welcomed on that platform.

...which then leaves a mobile market with a lot less market share than the competition.

Sorry but I'm not a believer this is going to work out. Even if it works technically.

4 1
1. Thursday 4th October 2012 15:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: I think theres another problem
  
  I really like most aspects of Windows 8 but I don't often use the ~~Metro~~ Modern UI apps for much more than glancing at the live tiles to see if there is a reason to open up a web browser and check the particular news/service. The Register's Windows 8 app is a good example of this given that headlines are the only things that reliably work in that anyway (Most longer articles get cut off, feed errors etc...).
  
  I imagine it may be more appealing to the average consumer who also owns a Win8 tablet or mobile so they can have the same app all over the place. From what I have witnessed those types of consumers aren't generally as fussy about the UI details as the technically inclined crowd.
  
  0 0
  1. Thursday 4th October 2012 16:27 GMT Paul Shirley
    
    Re: so they can have the same app all over the place
    
    Surely if they have an app on their phone they don't necessarily need it on the desktop since the phone will likely be sitting next to the keyboard functioning as a 2nd screen. Mine sits there showing me incoming email,gmail,tweets,IM etc while I'm doing other things on the desktop. It actually does that consumption pattern better than the PC does.
    
    I switch to PC versions because there's a real keyboard attached OR they have much richer interfaces that make replying easier. Having the same UI on the desktop seems totally pointless. I need the same content and the same service but don't need to limit the interface to access that. I put up with an inferior UI away from the desktop because I have to, when I'm at my desktop why would I accept that?
    
    1 0
  2. Thursday 4th October 2012 16:35 GMT Tom 35
    
    Re: I think theres another problem
    
    I don't think live tiles are going to do anything on the desktop.
    
    MS killed off Windows 7 desktop widgets as not worth the effort of fixing, and there was active desktop before that. Maybe they can bring back clippy with a new name too, just get the same people who came up with the name for Metro / Modern UI / Widnows 8 App store app / what every they are calling it this week.
    
    6 0
Thursday 4th October 2012 14:51 GMT Anonymous Coward

Hmmm...

"Programmers are still ambivalent towards Windows 8, according to a new poll, piling pressure on Microsoft to win them over before it is too late."

it is probably safe to say that it is now ... too late.

7 4
1. Thursday 4th October 2012 16:43 GMT dogged
  
  Re: Hmmm...
  
  I think that if someone is surprised that iOS-app makers are not interested in Windows 8, that someone is an idiot.,
  
  4 3
Thursday 4th October 2012 14:57 GMT Matt_payne666

this is a shame... and I hope the trend changes... Ive now been using win8 as my main os for a few weeks and starting to really like the live tiles, keeping me uptodate with things...

What Id like is more integration between desktop apps and metro apps... almost client server type setups - fullfat on the desktop, but the ability to poll, quick view and edit from the start screen...

as for only developing for a large userbase? well, once OEM's start shipping post nov or at the latest early new year, any member of joe public will be supplied with Win8. (yes they can install Linux or downgrade to 7 or XP, but most mainstream users wont.) so this time next year win8 will have a pretty large userbase...

5 3
1. Thursday 4th October 2012 15:08 GMT Mark .
  
  Yes I was confused by that - is the article talking about Windows Phone 8, or Windows 8?
  
  Of course Windows RT adds to the confusion, which will start from scratch and not have existing software. But it's odd that people talk about straightforward (x86) Windows 8 as if it will have little software or will have little share, when (a) it'll have the complete back catalogue of x86 Windows software (not rewritten for "Metro", but isn't that what most people here want?), and (b) even if Windows 8 takeup isn't that great, will still be going on most of the 400 million PCs sold a year, as you say.
  
  I saw a BBC article the other day saying that Windows 8 might not have much software, and would struggle to compete with its "ecosystem". I mean, what? The "ecosystem" is MS's biggest advantage - it's just no one called it an "ecosystem" before people started to use marketing buzzwords for a certain mobile platform.
  
  Or maybe these people don't realise that "app" is short for application, and so think that Windows 8 doesn't have many "apps" yet. But in a world where even software developers apparently think iphone is the largest platform when it isn't, it's scary to think what ideas some people have.
  
  5 0
  1. Thursday 4th October 2012 18:59 GMT Richard Plinston
    
    > it'll have the complete back catalogue of x86 Windows software
    
    For tablets that back catalogue is of little use. Windows Slates have been available for years and only sold in a niche market because the software mostly requires a keyboard and mouse and therefore a laptop is more suitable. In fact the Surface is really a laptop that wont work on your lap because the keyboard joint is floppy.
    
    > on most of the 400 million PCs sold a year
    
    PC sales are not a one sided transaction. They require a seller _and_ a buyer. The sale requires that someone decides 'I want that' and puts down the money.
    
    If in the retail store the customer sees TIFKAM and decides that is what they didn't want on their phone they may decide that they don't want that. They may buy an iPad or Galaxy instead, or buy nothing. In many cases they will already have an XP or Win7 machine which they may have replaced in a 3 year cycle, but could decide that it is 'good enough', and use the money to pay off their credit card instead.
    
    4 0
2. Thursday 4th October 2012 15:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  But Windows 7 had desktop gadgets. How are live tiles any different than a square arranged Win 7 gadget? Did gadgets succeed or fail? uh?
  
  6 0
  1. Thursday 4th October 2012 16:34 GMT Paul Shirley
    
    How are live tiles any different
    
    The most obvious is you can't see them while running a Metro app or using desktop mode... which is why I prefer seeing my message counts on the the notification bar in Android or the start bar in Windows.
    
    Never been able to understand why using a huge chunk of WP7/8 homescreen to show a simple count makes any sense at all. Its the homescreen - only visible while you're doing nothing and its a HUGE waste of space.
    
    5 0
    1. Thursday 4th October 2012 16:47 GMT Tom 35
      
      Re: How are live tiles any different
      
      Don't forget Active Desktop and the push channels that came out at the same time.
      
      At the time Microsoft was going on about how live information delivered direct to your desk top would change the world of computing. But it was just one big Meh in the end.
      
      4 0
Thursday 4th October 2012 15:02 GMT Anonymous Coward

Meh?

In other news, it was a very clear day over the Jordan river. Jesus is going to walk over ti Israel and tell them

'They have been very naughty boys'.

Being serious for a moment, did anyone really expect that they would be a tsuanmi like surge towards developing 'metroised' apps for this OS?

Wise developers are playing it safe and giving it a big bit of 'wait and see'.

4 0
1. Thursday 4th October 2012 16:35 GMT h4rm0ny
  
  Re: Meh?
  
  "Wise developers are playing it safe and giving it a big bit of 'wait and see'."
  
  That's not very wise. This is one of those rare chances to get into a market where there isn't already a large installed base of competitors. Opportunities like this come along rarely and will never come again for iPhone and Android. We know that there will be a huge install base of Win8 devices. The majority of new computers sold will support it, the Lumia and other phones look fantastic. Even if for some reason they don't sell well, there will still be huge numbers sold. Plus the Win8 tablets. I would rather my product be one in a million selling to a market for ten million, than my product be one in twenty million selling to a market double the size. Wise developers are getting in right now to catch the wave of early adoption when people can type in Calorie Tracker and get twenty results instead of a thousand.
  
  4 5
  1. Thursday 4th October 2012 17:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    "That's not very wise"
    
    I'd guess they are putting small amounts of investments in. To them it's not worth the large risk for a small gain (small user base).
    
    4 0
Thursday 4th October 2012 15:05 GMT Anonymous Coward

a large install base is their number-one criterion when picking a platform to write for

Not the only way of thinking.

You could see a userbase of 50,000,000 as a great starting point. However their app store has over 10,000 apps with similar functionality to yours so you have to be lucky to be noticed and get any sales at all.

Then you have the smaller platform, which only has a userbase of 2,000,000 but the app store has little or no directly competing apps so you will probably see a higher number of sales.

If I were a mobile developer I know where I would be focusing my attention, at least in the short term. As Windows 8 rolls out, being first into the app store will give you great visibility on the platform and initial sales should be high. If the platform does well enough and grows then as the app store grows, being already known as the app to have will drive further sales. If the platform doesn't do well then you cut your losses and focus on the other platforms but you should have already made a profit from the initial rush of sales.

6 3
1. Thursday 4th October 2012 15:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: a large install base is their number-one criterion when picking a platform to write for
  
  Are you both assuming a user base and a desire to purchase your product? Most find the larger user base = more opportunity just by numbers alone. The exception is niche markets or customers though.
  
  3 0
2. Thursday 4th October 2012 15:30 GMT RyokuMas
  
  Got to agree
  
  Visibility is everything. This year, I've had four games out on the WP7, and excluding the one that only just launched, all of them have been highlighted art least once on the marketplace - and two have even been given the main feature spot (the panorama). I seriously doubt that I could have gained that kind of exposure (and thus numbers of downloads) on Android or iOS.
  
  Makes me wonder - if you took 10 developers for each platform - casual app/game writers, not teams or studios with budgets for content and marketing - had them make and publish a game or app, then promote it using whatever means they could obtain without expenditure, and see which platform gave the greatest number of downloads and/or returns...
  
  4 1
3. Thursday 4th October 2012 16:46 GMT Outtatowner
  
  Re: a large install base is their number-one criterion when picking a platform to write for
  
  While your logic should stand on it's own, unfortunately in the laws of mobile, the adoption rate (aka the user-base) also indicates the prowess and willingness of the consumer to go out and reach out, find, download and use the 'app'.
  
  In fact, I can tell you for a fact: having seen a person follow your adage with WinPho7. It's quite the opposite of the outcome you predict.
  
  A small platform is just that. A dead 'ecosystem' where even those who are in it are trying to claw their way out and minimize their losses by not sinking any more investments into it.
  
  Would be cool if it wasn't the truth. I'd be laughing all the way to the bank in November followed by February with respective WinMoPhoRTDesk8 and BB10 releases.
  
  2 2
Thursday 4th October 2012 15:06 GMT /\/\j17

If only...

If only someone like Nokia could come up with a unified mobile development platform, so you could write once and compile for all sorts of different platforms/operating systems/screen sizes and resolutions/etc.

Or rather, if only Nokia hadn't dumped Qt, in no small part because Microsoft didn't want the competition for windows phone development.

8 0
1. Thursday 4th October 2012 15:11 GMT Miek
  
  Re: If only...
  
  "development platform, so you could write once and compile for all sorts of different platforms/operating systems/screen sizes and resolutions/etc." -- This is what Java is intended to do.
  
  3 0
  1. Thursday 4th October 2012 15:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: If only...
    
    Or what Java does do AFAIK.
    
    5 2
    1. Thursday 4th October 2012 15:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      Re: If only...
      
      The problem is: which Java? - EE, SE, ME, and/or those strange mobile sub-editions that are the software-platform equivalents of tadpoles which are starting to grow legs.
      
      3 2
    2. Thursday 4th October 2012 15:35 GMT Barracoder
      
      Re: If only...
      
      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
      
      Sure, Java already does that, AFAYK. Right.
      
      4 2
  2. Thursday 4th October 2012 16:43 GMT h4rm0ny
    
    Re: If only...
    
    Java does do that (imperfectly, I'm told - I'm not a Java programmer). But it doesn't bring you support for all the different environments. If you look at the APIs provided for MUI apps, there's a lot of stuff in there to handle different screen sizes, resolutions, auto-laying out menus according to screen format and orientation, etc. Java might let you run something on different devices, but it's great to have APIs and support so that you write your app and the menus and layout will still work when you move between different screen sizes or even to the Desktop. Ditto for input devices. Whilst the same Java code may run on both a phone and a PC, it's great to have the API handle a lot of the work in whether someone is using a mouse or touch for example.
    
    3 1
Thursday 4th October 2012 15:39 GMT Spoonsinger

If someone wants me to code for it....

Yeh!, good for them, and money in my pocket - and I get paid for the learning experience regardless of how short term it was. But, actually, not entirely sure I'd want to invest actual time/money in their 'vision' when I'd get a better return from writing standard applications for, like, real businesses.

Beer to the person @ MS who took offense at my pronunciation of OLE as oily during nineties. (I hope you are happy with your life). Oh!, and I'm still pissed off that I had to sit on the floor during the CE stuff - because 'we have overbooked' excuse.

3 0
Thursday 4th October 2012 16:00 GMT A J Stiles

What it really needs

What Windows Phone 8 really, desperately needs is an Android emulator.

3 3
1. Thursday 4th October 2012 16:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: What it really needs
  
  I suspect a large number of Android apps wouldn't pass Microsoft's certification process anyway.
  
  3 2
Thursday 4th October 2012 16:01 GMT MarkL

Shocker

Shock news! Yet-to-launch product has low market share!!

This is precisely why Microsoft has pushed Metro out to both desktop and tablet user alike with Windows 8. Within the next 12 months, Windows PC shipments will ensure that the Metro environment is available to significantly more users than of the iPad.

Microsoft's challenge is not to ensure Windows 8 shipments happen - they will - it's to ensure that the Metro environment becomes relevant beyond the tablet market. If not, the perceived market for Metro will end up smaller than the actual install base for Windows 8.

Either way, building market share is not going to be about shipments of either tablets, or PCs, it's all about Metro relevance to end users.

6 3
Thursday 4th October 2012 16:48 GMT Mage

Symbian

It once had about 98% install base, but few users had decent data packages.

Out of the gate, most iOS users used the phone on the Internet while only a few % of Symbian users did.

So it's not just market share of sales today or % install base but the data packages and sort of usage. If you only want to make phone calls why buy an iPhone or Android at all?

0 0
Thursday 4th October 2012 18:01 GMT Anonymous Coward

How to encourage developers take a chance on WP8, Windows 8

Report from the Redmond focus group analysis on boosting developer evangelism:

1. Keep them in the dark about WP8 dev tools.

2. Put up the prices of Visual Studio.

That should do it.

4 1
1. Thursday 4th October 2012 18:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: How to encourage developers take a chance on WP8, Windows 8
  
  3. Create a free ebook and release previews of it along the way prior to official launch
  
  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2012/08/20/free-ebook-programming-windows-8-apps-with-html-css-and-javascript-second-preview.aspx
  
  2 1
Thursday 4th October 2012 20:14 GMT Charles Manning

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!

Except in this case it would be far more than the second time Microsoft has made promises like these and failed to deliver or has done a bait and switch.

Win NT POSIX layer: Easy porting of your *nix apps to NT. Except of course it was broken and soon withdrawn forcing anyone who had made a commitment to NT-based products to switch to the Windows APIs.

Windows CE: All those lovely Windows APIs on a small platform... except it wasn't.

and so on...

Why should it be any different this time?

1 0
Thursday 4th October 2012 22:40 GMT Al Jones

Missing the point (as usual)

I have a more than a dozen utilities installed on my desktop that I wouldn't pay $15 for (I just don't need them that badly), but that the developer can't easily sell for much less than that to make it worthwhile. The success of App Stores for developers has been in apps that cost $1-$5 that sell in large volumes. There are almost no Windows apps currently available in that price range, because it's just not cost effective to sell at that price - there's no standard payment method, there's no standard licensing method to ensure than only people who pay for the application can use it, and the potential audience for a paid windows desktop application is a tiny fraction of the potential audience for a free app, and sometimes an audience is enough - a good reputation can lead to contracts.

Windows 8 promises to deliver a marketplace where there is no more work involved in delivering a paid app than there is in delivering a free app. If (and it's a big if) Windows 8 users can be convinced to pay for apps, then exiting Windows developers will start paying a lot of attention to Windows 8 versions. Some of those apps will also be interesting to Phone users (some won't).

Personally, I might be inclined to pay for $1 or $3 for some of the apps that I currently only use because they're free, if they're in the Windows 8 App Store, and I have some funding mechanism for my App Store account. I don't want to attach my credit card to such an account, but if I can pick up a $10 gift card at the grocery store (as I can with iTunes credit, for example), I might stick some credit in the account to use for impulse purchases.

This might even be a useful funding source for some Open Source projects - for example, VLC could remain free for the desktop version, but the Metro version could be available from the Windows Store for $1.

So Windows 8 potentially offers small developers a market place where they can actually sell their application, without the overhead that is currently involved in doing that. But the widespread availability of Microsoft Store Gift cards might be the real "secret ingredient" that make this work.

The Google Nexus came with $25 app-store credit. Window 8 machines should come with a $25 Microsoft App Store Gift card if Microsoft really wants this new ecosystem to work.

1 0
Friday 5th October 2012 06:20 GMT ratfox

Chicken and egg problem

No user base means no developer means no apps means no user base.

That's why they are shoehorning the Metro^W tablet UI on desktops, because they hope the user base there will be enticing enough for developers to develop apps for it which will entice users…

1 0