Developers, Developers, Developers – Microsoft Hates You.

One has to assume you know exactly where this image came from. But just incase you forgot… this is from the Internet famous episode that my man Ballmer had a couple years back where he runs out breath like an idiot yelling “Developers, Developers, Developers” over and over again until I think someone told him to stop before he popped a blood vessel. Seriously one of the greatest moments in YouTube history. Make sure you check out the remixes.

Anyway, on to our main topic – which if it turns out to be true, pretty much just shut down any chance of Microsoft selling anything through their Mobile Marketplace.

istartedsomething.com is running a story that says:

I’ve also received word from Microsoft “application updates will count as new application submissions, and therefore will count towards the first 5 free submissions, or will cost $99 each after that”. That is, every new binary is treated as a new application.

Let that sink in for a second… $99 for EVERY update to an application. EVERY UPDATE – not just major updates – we’re talking things as simple as slipping a “teh” instead of a “the”. Things like not properly handling the failwhale when twitter is down and it causes your app to fail horribly and take the device with it. Things like adding customer requested functionality. EVERY UPDATE is potentially going to cost a developer $99 to have re-submitted to the Microsoft store.

So, what’s that going to do? Well, for one I’m not even going to bother putting any time in to learning to develop for WinMo, and I doubt I’m going to be the only one who makes that decision. You’re never going to see cool little apps like Pocket God which has seen an “episode” a week for a while now get ported over. But here’s something I can promise you will see for those developers who chose to participate: Sky high prices or YEARLY updates with no point releases or bug fixes in between.

Look reality is simple: Microsoft is sitting on a potential goldmine. The software selling business model has kept companies like Handango and PocketGear going for a long time and they’re in a position to take all of that business plus a sizable chunk of developer’s direct to market sales. They were coming to market with a better deal for developers, a better way of getting software for consumers, and a real chance at winning over both sides from Apple.

Apple is making a mint by providing all the tools for free. a cheap registration cost to developers, making the cost of admission very low to get a real product out into the hands of millions of people. People who all benefit by cheap apps, ease of purchase and good quality. All Microsoft had to do was look at what Apple did, copy it completely (like they’ve done a billions times before) and make a killing. A sweaty monkey could have done it. COPY THE FRICKING MODEL AND MAKE A BILLION BUCKS. HOW HARD IS THAT? But no… leave it to Microsoft to take something simple and utterly fudge it up.

(via JKOTR)

© Brandon for Just Another Mobile Monday, 2009. |
Permalink |
One comment |
Add to
del.icio.us

Post tags: appstore, microsoft, Mobile Apps