There’s little doubt that Apple’s App Stores has been pretty transformative for the company – sales from Apple’s App Store topped $1.5 Billion in revenue in 2010 alone mostly based upon a 30% revenue sharing deal with application developers. According to recent reports, Apple’s desktop App Store sales are quickly growing to meet the earning potential of the mobile App Store. Both the mobile and desktop App stores has provided many OS X and iOS developers with the ability to directly target their customers instead of relying on individual online storefronts.
Not content to be left out of App Store party though, Microsoft recently announced that their next major operating system – Windows 8 – will feature its own version of an App Store. This time around Microsoft is targeting both desktop and mobile users for their next operating system as it built to run on both desktops and tablets with no coding differences so it’s expected that their App Store will span both tablet and desktop environments.
On June 1st Microsoft officially showed off the new Windows 8 user interface and many of the OS’s new features, but only mentioned that the company is planning on using a App Store a la Apple in order to get applications to users hassle free. However, as of right now there’s no telling if Microsoft’s attempt at an App Store will be as fruitful as Apple’s. But there’s no doubt that many people will develop applications for the Windows 8 App Store when it is finally released. One of the biggest challenges to having a successful application store is ensuring that your operating system has a large install base, however, there should be no problem convincing developers that there are millions of Windows users.
According to Net Marketshare Windows currently has a 87.57% market share of all operating systems (including mobile operating systems). The Windows 8 App Store has amazing potential as well, imagine a future where a company like McAfee can sell their applications and services directly to users from the Windows 8 App Store instead of over the phone or from a clunky internet storefront. When Windows 8′s new Metro user interface was unveiled it was stated that this new look and the apps that would support it would be built upon HTML5 and Javascript.
This developmental change in application code has sparked a huge debate among long time Windows developers with some claiming that this is the beginning of the end of Silverlight and .NET application. However, many developers are praising Microsoft for the company’s radical departure from tradition and see the new HTML and Javascript coding environment as a potential to make applications that are easier to develop and maintain.
Furthermore, by embracing open coding environments like HTML5 and Javascript it is possible that many of the new Windows 8 apps will be portable to internet and mobile devices with little to no change in the application’s base code. So far the only evidence of the Windows 8 App Store is the icon that was shown when Windows 8 was first revealed the only thing left to do right now is to wait, but luckily it shouldn’t be a long wait as Windows 8 will is expected to be released in Fall 2012.
Information provided by social media marketing Scottsdale