
Windows Store Revenue Split - llambda
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/12/07/windows-store-revenue-split
======
consultutah
It will be interesting to see if the Windows Store takes off. I assume it will
since it will be placed front and center in the user experience whereas the
Windows Marketplace has always been impossible to get to.

A little competition for Apple is a good thing.

~~~
mcritz
I'm a Mac/iPhone using designer, and super-excited about Win 8. I think you've
got it backwards. Windows sells more than Mac OS, iOS, and Android combined.

~~~
bad_user
Reference please. If you're adding smartphones getting sold, I doubt it. It's
not even close.

In Q2 2011 the numbers of PCs sold was ~ 85 million [1]. The growth rate over
Q2 2010 is predicted to be only 2.3 %

For the same Q2 2011 - 428.7 million mobile devices have been sold, out of
which 107 million were smartphones [2]. More interesting however is the growth
rate of smartphones sales since Q2 2010: 74%

Now, the total number of Windows computers is bigger than all smartphones
combined. However, Windows XP still has over 30% market share and Vista has
over 10%. That's pretty bad for Microsoft. PCs aren't selling like they used
to and users aren't upgrading much.

If Microsoft relies on tablet sales for increasing the numbers of devices with
Windows 8, well you can probably count the millions of iPads sold on one hand
(correction: according to Wikipedia since April 2010 that's 39.85 million -
pretty good, however a small number compared to smartphones). You can also
make a case that Microsoft will do deals with hardware makers, however there
are good reasons why Android is so far unsuccessful on tablets and I'm not
seeing Microsoft doing a better job.

[1] <http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1744216>

[2] <http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1764714>

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mikerg87
Multiple payment engines to me is a miss and not a hit. Creating an account
and giving credit card info to get one more online merchant is a total pain.

With iTunes payments I am way up on my spend. I used to spend about $40/mo.
With the apple handling magazine apps and all kinds of other payments for
games like smurf village I spend easily $180 a month. Maybe the other way is
good for developers but it blows for the consumer. Make it easy for me to give
you money and I will.

~~~
potatolicious
Actually I think this is a _great_ idea - MSFT isn't saying they _won't_ run
their own payment engine, they're giving devs the _choice_ on whether or not
to use their payment engine.

This is far superior to Apple's current policy right now.

There are some pretty extreme advantages to tying yourself into the first-
party payment engine. As you've brought up, it's _way_ easier to separate me
from my money if all I have to do is type in an ID that's already pre-
registered to the device. There is in fact a large incentive for devs to go
first-party.

But that's not true for all cases, and the edge cases really make iOS a
painful platform to use at times. Amazon can't integrate their book store into
the Kindle app because Apple wants their cut. As a consumer, I _don't mind_
giving my CC info to Amazon and signing up for their account, and Apple's
policy makes my experience as a user noticeably worse.

The incentives for most developers to go with the first-party payment solution
is IMO enough - Apple's enforcement here just seems heavy-handed and
unnecessary.

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smackfu
The Apple philosophy on their store has always seemed much more in tune with
$1 purchases than $20 ones. No one really needs refunds or trials for a $1
purchase.

~~~
gecko
This cuts both directions, though: I am loath to spend more than $1 on an iOS
application, without _piles_ of good reviews, _because_ there is no easy way
to return it. I'd happily pay double on average for an iOS application if I
got to use it for a day in exchange.

~~~
rmc
Where are you based? What territory? In the EU, the distance selling directive
means that customers of online orders are entitled to a full refund with 7
days of purchase even if they have just changed their mind.

I've never invoked that law, but presume it would apply to software.

~~~
potatolicious
Apple offers this benefit globally IIRC - but they hide the UI as deep as they
can and force you to go through a rather manual customer support process.
Clearly it's not meant for people to actually _use_.

~~~
rmc
Yeah that's called good customer service. IME amazon kindle ebooks are
similar.

However its good to know what your legally entitled to, in case you do it lots
and the company stops being nice.

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yahelc
Gruber "Statement against interest" heuristic: If he says something an Apple
competitor is doing is smart/good/right/better, it should be given extra
credence.

~~~
laconian
Or perhaps he considers it to be the lesser enemy of his mortal enemy?

~~~
ootachi
I think this is more accurate. Gruber has generally been complimentary of
Windows Phone compared to Android, but he doesn't believe it measures up to
iOS.

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dbcooper
Will the Windows Store (on the desktop) always be limited to metro apps, or
will it eventually include "normal" windows apps such as foobar2000, ccleaner
etc?

Centralised package management and updates is the one new feature I most want
from Windows 8.

~~~
jccodez
From this article, consider the source..
[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-to-share-
more-...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-to-share-more-details-
on-its-windows-8-app-store/11313) Desktop (non-Metro-style) apps will be able
to be promoted in the Windows Store if they meet Microsoft’s Desktop App
certification requirements, and will be discoverable via the Windows 8 store.
Windows 8 Desktop Apps will be neither licenesable nor downloadable (i.e.,
able to take advantage of the Windows 8 fulfillment service) from the Store.

~~~
dbcooper
That's quite disappointing - I would've thought that desktop app package
management would be useful for small businesses and end-users.

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guygurari
> I sure hope Apple is working on a way to enable free trials.

Official support would be nice, but can't developers already implement trials
using in-app purchases? Download the app for free to get the trial, then pay
to unlock the full version. Many apps are already using this approach.

~~~
potatolicious
As others have mentioned, Apple disallows time bombs, but the problem goes
further.

Say you have an app, Foo. It's a reduced-function version and you want your
users to buy Foo Pro. In order to use in-app purchases as an upgrade
mechanism, you now have a bunch of customers running with Foo, except with Foo
Pro functions unlocked. And you also have a bunch of customers running around
with just Foo Pro.

The second part of this mess is that, unlike app purchases, users cannot see
which in-app purchases they already own. If they ever get a new device,
reinstall the app, etc etc, they have to "buy" the in-app purchase again to
unlock the Pro version, and pray they don't get double-charged (it happens).
As an app developer this is a support nightmare scenario.

This is not to mention that some users will mistakenly purchase the Pro
version (and thus get double charged) when they get a new device, instead of
downloading the regular version and "re-buying" the in-app purchase.

~~~
guygurari
> As others have mentioned, Apple disallows time bombs

Yes, I did not know this. I don't understand the reason behind this rule, but
as a user I find time-limited trials annoying. I prefer to have a trial
version where I can use all the functionality but with a limited amount of
data. For example, a task management app may restrict the number of tasks I
can create. This way, hitting the limit is a good indication that the app is
useful for me. Hitting a time limit doesn't actually mean anything, while
crippling the functionality itself means I can't really try out the app.

> you now have a bunch of customers running with Foo, except with Foo Pro
> functions unlocked. And you also have a bunch of customers running around
> with just Foo Pro.

What I suggest is to not have Foo Pro at all. Just one version, Foo, which is
free and can be unlocked.

> The second part of this mess is that, unlike app purchases, users cannot see
> which in-app purchases they already own.

I agree this is a mess, but remember that not too long ago there was no way to
see app purchases either. So there is some hope this information will be added
soon.

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recoiledsnake
>Another big difference from Apple. I wonder though, with the various
antitrust agreements Microsoft has made around the world, whether they could
even consider an Apple-style “if you use our store, all transactions must go
through us” policy.

I believe that doesn't really apply to Windows 8 because you can sideload
regular non-Metro programs all you want, just like on Windows 8. The Windows
Store will still link to third party websites carrying non-metro apps.

The only hardware where you cannot do this will be Windows 8 ARM tablets. And
since Windows is starting from zero in a market completely dominated by the
iPad, I doubt anti-trust will be a concern anytime soon, considering that
Apple is getting away with the lockdown and 30% cut of all in-app purchases
despite being a near monopoly.

~~~
pavlov
_The only hardware where you cannot do this will be Windows 8 ARM tablets._

I don't think is set in stone yet. AFAIK, the classic Windows desktop and
associated APIs like .NET have been ported to ARM. For example, Microsoft has
showed desktop Office running on ARM last year.

There seems to be some internal debate at MS about whether to ship Win8 ARM as
Metro only, with the classic desktop included, or even both (i.e. have two
SKUs and let the OEMs choose).

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villaaston
God, John Gruber is a twat

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aresant
It's a nice idea conceptually but it's not addressing their key problem.

Microsoft's problem is that the Android install base is 8x larger and iPhone
is 5x larger (1)

I get that they're trying to create an incentive to developers but the reality
in mobile is that if you have limited development resources, you develop for
iPhone & Android.

The promise of a little extra revenue when you push past $25k feels more like
a favor to their big platform devs than it does a compelling reason for
smaller devs to look to the Windows platform.

What's interesting is that MSFT gets how to use killer apps to power a
platform - remember when they just flat out BOUGHT Bungie to keep HALO an XBOX
exclusive?

That move made the platform.

A touch evil and anti-competitive yes, but come on MSFT get more creative
about solving this problem.

(1)[http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/11/...](http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/11/comScore_Reports_September_2011_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share)

~~~
MatthewPhillips
The "Windows Store" this article is talking about is the Windows 8 store. The
install base of that will be larger than iOS and Android combined.

~~~
wmf
That's not obvious; if the "post-PC" world has kicked in by 2013, Windows 8
may not be that big.

~~~
akmiller
The "post-PC" world is extremely far off for Corporate America... or Corporate
anywhere for that matter. I happen to even believe it's a long ways off for
non corporate uses as well.

~~~
DavidAdams
Important to note that the Corporate World won't be touching the Windows app
store with a ten meter cattle prod. IT departments determine what gets
installed on all those machines. So all of those massive amounts of users will
be irrelevant to Microsoft's app store fortunes.

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slig
> I sure hope Apple is working on a way to enable free trials. The way it
> works on Windows Phone is great.

Is he being ironic? I've never used a Windows Phone, so I can't tell.

~~~
gecko
He's being quite serious. Windows 7 Phone apps can easily ship with a trial
mode, which, when activated, allows you to use the full app. This is in
contrast to iOS applications, where the trial apps are inevitably their own,
completely separate applications (e.g., Angry Birds Lite). On top of the
annoyance of simply having two applications to deal with, the separate
applications, plus iOS sandboxing rules, mean that data from the trial
application cannot be transferred to the full application in most
circumstances.

Gruber has actually been quite bullish on Windows 7 Phone, and I think he's
being completely serious about this statement.

~~~
gurkendoktor
> On top of the annoyance of simply having two applications to deal with, the
> separate applications, plus iOS sandboxing rules, mean that data from the
> trial application cannot be transferred to the full application in most
> circumstances.

I could hack this using URL schemes within a couple hours, but admittedly it
was not too much data (1kb? :)). I guess iCloud could make it even easier.

It still is a nightmare, usability wise. When you have an iPhone and iPad,
iTunes is terrible enough even without application duplicates (Lite/Full and
even HD sometimes).

