Microsoft is apparently encouraging developers to charge more for Windows Phone apps, a repeat of the company’s strategy with Windows Mobile 6.5.
“Id rather developers sell fewer than a million downloads and get to a million dollars,” Brandon Watson, Microsofts director of developer experience for Windows Phone, was quoted by the Bloomberg News Service as saying this week. “If we can support a higher price point, thats good for developers.”
Best Microsoft MCTS Training, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com
This isnt the first time that Microsofts encouraged higher prices for mobile apps. Back in ye olden days of 2009, company representatives suggested that developers set higher prices for apps for the then-new Windows Mobile 6.5.
“We would definitely want to promote that you make more money selling applications than selling your application in a dollar store,” Loke Uei, senior technical product manager for Microsofts Mobile Developer Experience Team, told a gathering of mobile-app developers that August. “I know, 99 cents is interesting — yes, consumers like to pay 99 cents for applications.
“But 99 cents, come on, I think your app is worth more than that.”
Windows Mobile 6.5, for those who have forgotten, was intended as a market-share placeholder until Microsoft could roll out Windows Phone 7, the first iteration of its next-generation smartphone platform. A huge Windows Phone software update due this fall, codenamed Mango, will elevate that version number to 7.5.
Encouraging a higher price for Windows Mobile 6.5 apps may have been Microsofts attempt to draw in any developers frustrated with Apples App Store, where broad swaths of apps are available for free or 99 cents. In theory, that makes it difficult for developers to build an audience unless they price their wares at the same point — effectively devastating their chance at substantial profits unless they sell in bulk.
However, the continuing success of the App Store — and of Googles Android Marketplace — suggests that developers have little problem with selling their apps for a relatively low price.
Microsofts app argument for Windows Phone has centered on the quality of the apps, which supposedly makes up for the platforms relatively low number at this early stage of life. But Microsoft isnt betting on apps alone to reverse its fortunes in the smartphone arena, where its been pummeled over the past several quarters by Google Android and iOS: The upcoming Mango release will add some 500 new elements to the platform.
Most of those elements, of course, will be tweaks that most users will never see or barely notice. However, a number of top-line features will also be introduced with the update, including multitasking, a redesigned Xbox Live Hub, visual voicemail, the ability to consolidate friends and colleagues into groups within the “People” Hub, and Local Scout, which offers a view of everything to see and do in a particular neighborhood.
For enterprise users, Mango offers some key additions, including the ability to search a server for email items no longer stored to a device, and share and save Office documents via Office 365 and Windows SkyDrive.
In addition to HTC and Nokia, Samsung and LG Electronics have apparently committed to building new Windows Phone devices preloaded with Mango. Acer, Fujitsu and ZTE are also planning to produce Windows Phone devices for the first time.”We have some Windows Mango phones,” HTC CEO Peter Chou reportedly told Reuters May 25. “We are very committed to Windows phone products.”