
Microsoft Is Writing Checks to Fill Out Its App Store - sew
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/technology/to-fill-out-its-app-store-microsoft-wields-its-checkbook.html?_r=1&hp&pagewanted=all
======
sriramk
If they weren't doing this, I would advocate firing whoever was running dev
marketing/partnerships. MSFT needs to jump start its dev ecosystem and using
its bank balance is one of the easier tools to deploy.

Now I would love to know how much Google paid Rovio + the other launch
partners for their Google+ platform. :)

~~~
Lewisham
Yeah, Microsoft did the same thing with the Xbox. They threw lots of money to
developers in a climate when I think most people thought there was no way
Microsoft could be cool enough to sell a console, particularly when it was
going up against the PS2.

Now, 360 is the market leader.

NYT makes it sound like Microsoft is somehow cheating, but it's wise enough to
realize that it needs to invest in order to bootstrap a new platform.

------
kgrin
Having just had a series of incredibly frustrating experiences trying to ship
a WP7 app, and given the awful support (or lack thereof) from MS throughout
their buggy-as-all-hell app submission process, my sympathies are quite
limited.

What I found particularly absurd is that while there were some technical
issues with the platform, they were pretty minor in the grand scheme of things
- bugginess-wise, nothing worse than what you encounter on Android... but the
App Marketplace submission and approval process was an unmitigated disaster,
and is of course the thing that you have the least control of.

~~~
jmspring
Can you elaborate on your challenges with the submission/approval process?

The stories of the iOS app store being a black box are well documented. I'm
curious what WP7 is like, as I am playing with something I might submit...

~~~
kgrin
Sure.

Problem 1: the actual upload(s) of the XAP to App Hub just failed sporadically
- we got an opaque error code which, when we looked it up, translated to
essentially "either there's a problem with your language settings... or there
was a random network error." Eventually it just worked, with no rhyme or
reason - one out of every few times, it would get through.

Problem 2: the first time we were able to complete the submission, the app was
rejected because we had marked it for worldwide distribution. Turns out the
[free] app was barred from three countries (China and I forget the other two)
because it had a few "inappropriate" images (of museum exhibits). OK, fine,
some countries are censorship-happy - not MS' fault. So what does MS do?
Reject the app wholesale (rather than just in the problematic countries). We
resubmit (going through all the difficulties of #1 above), exclude the
problematic countries from the "where do you want your app available"
checkboxes... and wait as it goes through the full 5-business-day approval
cycle.

Problem 3: OK, the app is certified and made it into the store! Woot! But wait
- it has a pretty serious bug - can't play any audio! (It's a museum tour, so
that's rather unfortunate!) The bug didn't exist in the version we tested (in
the emulator and two real devices), and after several days of back-and-forth
with MS, they acknowledged it was a bug in the "XAP ingestion" process (what
App Hub does to your XAP once it's submitted). They suggested a workaround,
which we implemented right away (it was trivial, albeit not-really-obvious).
At that point - this is after talking to several-layers-up support engineers -
we asked that they push our update to the store ASAP (given that it was their
bug we were working around). The best they could do is "expedite" the
certification/approval process, which still took 3 or 4 business days - which
doesn't sound like a lot, but is pretty absurd given that the update fixed a
showstopping bug which was the result of MS's own submission process.

All in all, it took several weeks from completion to actually appearing in the
store - which is better than the App Store at its worst, but not exactly
awesome... and, FWIW, we only started getting real answers after several
layers of escalation (which I suppose isn't terribly unusual, but again, not
really confidence-inspiring).

~~~
smackfu
>So what does MS do? Reject the app wholesale (rather than just in the
problematic countries).

Honestly, they can't really do that either or they would get complaints. "Our
biggest market is China and they just removed it, Microsoft is stupid!" I know
it can be frustrating but they have to go by developer intents first because
then there is no guessing. It would be nice if they had a cleaner resubmission
process though.

~~~
saurik
While I agree that it shouldn't be automatic, this isn't actually a relevant
complaint as sending a message to the developer stating "your app was rejected
for three countries, but can be deployed immediately elsewhere" makes a lot
more sense that forcing you back through the 5-day approval process; not just
for the developer, but for Microsoft as well: that time isn't cheap
(especially for a free application).

------
farnsworth
I really really want Microsoft to succeed with WP7. I know Microsoft/Windows
hate is popular, and I'm not saying it hasn't been justified at times, but we
need a solid third competitor to Android and iOS. More competition ->
everybody wins.

But - reading this, I realized I had almost no idea what Microsoft's app store
is like, or even how typical apps look. I looked up the Facebook app (
[http://www.windowsphone.com/en-
US/apps/82a23635-5bd9-df11-a8...](http://www.windowsphone.com/en-
US/apps/82a23635-5bd9-df11-a844-00237de2db9e) ) and have to say... do they all
look like that? Where almost 1/3 of the view is dead space? Even on the screen
where it's partly used, it looks like they just couldn't get the layout quite
right. Then there is the massive title on each "tab", and I've always kind of
liked the metro look but does it have to take up so much space?

~~~
zmmmmm
> I've always kind of liked the metro look but does it have to take up so much
> space?

This has actually been a well known criticism of WP7 that goes under the name
"low information density". People counter that by saying it's a feature, not a
bug.

For me, it creates a problem because every time I pick up a WP7 handset it
feels like a feature phone. The nicest feature-phone I ever held, but it still
has this limited, focused, prebaked feel that I find hard to explain but which
exactly reminds me of the same feeling I get with feature phones. I think the
smart phone market is very much an aspirational one where people expect to
feel like they're stepping into the future, and WP7 just doesn't feel like
that. As much as everyone praises iOS for it's polished and slick nature,
that's not actually why people are buying phones (and also why Android
succeeds in spite of having missed the polish). They are trying to empower
themselves with something more advanced than their previous phone which
probably already had things like a facebook widget and weather app, etc.

~~~
Joeri
I feel that windows phone is more realistic in its assumptions of how tiny and
dense content can be and remain usable, but that's probably because i don't
have perfect vision. I also think the chromeless look is more future-oriented,
because it won't look dated as quickly. The iOS look already seems dated to me
(perhaps because i used a mac for years before i saw iOS).

Oh, and the app-centric model of iOS and Android is in my opinion a design
flaw. A humane design shouldn't organize based on apps but based on tasks, and
those tasks shouldn't get equal visibility an an icon grid.

------
robomartin
Here's something Microsoft and Google seem to not get in a big way: iPod.

Put out a lower-cost non-phone device already! Call it whatever you want. The
W7/8 "Gamester" or whatever. Offer that choice and your market just multiplied
tremendously. Follow the iPhone<->iPod model.

Case in point. Each of my kids has their own iPod. They'll don't have their
own iPhones. What mother wants to hand a 3 year old their phone at a
restaurant? We've done it for those unavoidable emergencies (you have to know
three-year-olds). There's a huge market for non-phone devices like this and it
just blows me away that these guys are battling hard over phones while
ignoring the huge market that non-phone but 100% software-compatible devices
represents.

As a developer I see that the iPhone + iPod ecosystem multiplies the number of
devices that my apps go into by a significant and non-trivial number.
Furthermore, it expands the demographics as well. These are all important
factors when considering which platform to focus on. Add to that the code-
compatible iPad and you have an absolute 1-2-3 punch winner.

Google and Microsoft (and everyone else trying to beat Apple at this game)
seem to be blind to this for some strange reason.

Am I missing something fundamental?

~~~
roc
> _"Am I missing something fundamental?"_

Price.

Apple's supply chain, the one that's turning out tablets that no-one can match
on price, has been doing the same thing to the PMP market with the iPod Touch.
Android PMPs either have a price premium over a stock iPod Touch or they
simply don't run well enough to meet consumer expectations.

Microsoft is in largely the same place price-wise. Though their more-
controlled product should be easier to optimize for cheaper/slower hardware
and their services/brands have found a better reception in the market. (XBox,
Live, Marketplace, Zune)

I think Microsoft is just too focused on the phone market to give it a serious
try.

Though a Phone 7 PMP could also be a victim of Microsoft's strategy crisis:
the bit where they seem to be so hell-bent on pushing _Windows_ onto
everything, that despite the critical reception, putting Phone 7 on anything
that isn't a phone is still anathema.

~~~
Lewisham
_"I think Microsoft is just too focused on the phone market to give it a
serious try."_

My read of WP7 has been that the OS is super-chatty by design, live tiles and
such. It seems a huge part of it will be knee-capped by not having an always-
on connection.

------
freehunter
This is great news (if it's still news to anyone, they've been paying for apps
for a while).

Two big issues that are commonly heard when Windows Phone is brought up (among
several) are the lack of apps and the lack of public awareness. I've recounted
my tale here on HN several times of when I bought my Windows Phone. The
salesman was so adamant that I was making a mistake that I actually had to go
as far as calling the manager over before I could buy one. There was nothing I
could do to convince him that I knew what I wanted.

With Microsoft paying to fill out the app store (developers, developers,
developers!) and Nokia paying for prime placement in AT&T stores, they'll be
given a fair shake to let consumers know the options. Microsoft is the 1990's
Apple when it comes to the mobile world. A strong and memorable start a decade
ago that came to a halt very quickly as competitors took marketshare.

I really, really hope Microsoft and Nokia know the limits, though. Combined,
they have a lot of money they can throw around. Microsoft did that to beat
Apple in the PC world 20 years ago, and it ended very badly for them. You can
put money into gaining marketshare, but when it's time to stop, you better
stop fast.

~~~
melling
How did it end badly for Microsoft back then? They still have around 90%
desktop market share. They're taking profits from that monopoly and they're
desperately trying to avoid missing the Post PC era. It'll be interesting to
see how it turns out. It's going to be a pain to have to write for 3 different
platforms.

This time I think Linux is gonna win, with Google behind it. :-).

------
jmitcheson
I swear; This paragraph from the article reads like something out of "The
Onion"

"Ben Huh, chief executive of the Cheezburger Network, a collection of humor
and entertainment sites, said Microsoft’s market share was too small to
warrant in-house development of a Windows Phone app. But when Microsoft
approached his company about making an application featuring funny photos of
cats, he agreed. “They made it very easy for us,” he said. “They took care of
everything.”"

------
hristov
I wonder how much they paid for the lolcats. Can't you just imagine a sweaty
MS exec shouting to his subordinates: "We must have lolcats! Cost is no
object!"

~~~
sopooneo
I'd like to imagine it was Balmer himself.

~~~
roc
s/developers/lolcats

------
robomartin
A long time ago I had the opportunity to work with the late Frank Zappa for a
few months. I also had the opportunity to have long chats with him over
dinner. Very interesting fellow.

One night the topic of religion came up. He suggested that there was a market
for starting a religion that enabled everything that all other religions said
was not permitted. Funny, but probably true at some level.

Take a look at everything Apple black-boxes and make it open while keeping
enough controls to keep the platform consistent and uniform across devices.
This could be huge.

And please, give me the ability to talk to a serial port (or USB or I2C or
SPI) without restrictions so I can put the devices to use in a lot of very
interesting areas that are just about impossible to approach with Apple's
offerings.

~~~
Hari_Seldon
Your suggestions are geek level features, not sure how this could be "huge". I
agree though that Zappa was an interesting man.

~~~
robomartin
There are so many applications that could benefit from hardware interfacing to
a smart phone that it's hard to make a list. Apple makes doing this very
cumbersome and expensive. Just to be able to talk to the serial port you have
to be approved for MFi membership and comply with a million requirements that
only add expense to a product. That's why you don't see a simple serial cable
available for open use. You can't legally buy the connectors and you have to
also buy a decryption chip even to use the simplest functions.

That's why you have people resorting to the ridiculous (but it works) extreme
of using the headphone jack to build such things as credit card scanners and
the like. They don't regulate the use of the headphone jack and seem to be
approving apps that use it. Headphone jacks were being used way back when
(Commodore 64 and TRS80 days) to talk to cassette-tape based storage. It's
literally going back 30+ years in technology.

While, on the surface, open peripheral port access might seem like a geek
feature I think that this is far from reality. If peripheral port access on
the iPhone was open for all to use you'd see all kinds of very interesting
things happening with hardware for the iDevices that you simply aren't going
to see given the current framework.

Also, this is the reason why there are no inexpensive iDevice compatible
hardware products. Developing them is very expensive due to the nature of the
process.

If MS was open about their I/O and they achieved reasonable penetration
there's a whole layer of the product world that would open up to their tech.

I think that when you come from behind and have the financial resources you
just can't afford to ignore any market, no matter how insignificant it might
look from your current vantage point. You never know where the next killer app
might come from.

------
cageface
_Once you get to 100,000, the number stops being important_

I've been saying this for a while. You have to cover the major bases but
beyond that it's just gravy. I've been tempted to dip my toes into the WP
market anyway because frankly the iOS market is saturated already and Android
is a pain in the ass for well documented reasons and I no longer have any
particular goodwill towards Google.

I think with C# Microsoft has the best development language, at least on
paper.

~~~
ghshephard
The issue isn't so much the number - I totally agree that you really don't
need 500 solitaire applications in order to be a competitive platform for the
user. What is important, though, is that the 15,000 to 20,000 Tier-1 Apps,
and, most importantly (critically), the 1,000 or so AAA Apps are found on your
platform. It's also important that the App developers show a little heart -
six months in and my mother _still_ can't add her location on Path on her HTC-
Desire-HD.

95% of the time, when a AAA App comes out, you can be certain that you'll have
a full featured version of that application on an IOS device. That's true
about 85% of the time on the Android - and it drops off a cliff immediately
thereafter for the Blackberry and WP7 platform - with some Tier-1 developer
who have already ported to the Blackberry starting to abandon that platform
(Kayak)

Owning an Android or IOS device means, today, being reasonably certain that
the App you want will be on your device.

Microsoft is showering people with money, training and hardware to make sure
that will be the case for WP7. Now they just have to ship a killer phone and
we'll have a horse race on our hands!

~~~
cageface
A counter-point: my fiance and her sister each recently bought a new iPhone
4S. They use them constantly all day but the only non-stock app they care
about is Skype. I have a feeling there are a ton of mobile users like this
that are easily satisfied by a solid foundation of Web, Email, SMS, and
Facebook.

~~~
SlipperySlope
How right you are!!!

Android smartphones will continue to dominate the lowest spec hardware,
especially in developing markets like China. Because the Microsoft OS cost
adds to the device bill-of-materials, and Android -being open source- does not
have this cost.

By analogy, its very hard to see how Microsoft will produce low-spec tablets
that are cheaper than what Amazon does with the Kindle Fire - and its
successor products.

~~~
Mythbusters
Don't forget the copyright tax that most android devices have to pay. Last I
read majority of manufacturers were paying this for using android.

------
r00fus
Perhaps Microsoft should copy Apple here as well. Apple and Kleiner-Perkins
created iFund in 08 [1] to fund mobile app development.

Zynga, Flipboard, Path and others have been funded through this.

$200M in investments, not payouts. Startups.

[1] <http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/ifund/companies>

~~~
ghshephard
That only makes sense from a VCs perspective, if you think the platform is
going to be successful. Microsoft might be willing to do it at a loss, though.

~~~
r00fus
I'd say it was a bet on Apple's part as well... I mean, if the platform vendor
isn't sure of the platform's success, then how would the VC have any
excitement about it?

------
jtchang
For all the naysayers don't count microsoft out yet. As a developer everything
in that article rings true. I don't want to develop on the platform when there
are 3 other ones vying for my attention. However, if Microsoft were to start
paying for the resources this might bring an about face.

Microsoft is doing exactly what it needs to do to compete in this market. They
were late and this is the price of entry.

------
nextparadigms
Too bad Google isn't doing the same with Android tablets - or if they do it,
they only do it for a few more popular apps and that's about it. I wish they
realized how much of an opportunity they are missing by not being more
aggressive with tablet apps.

------
bambax
How difficult would it be for Microsoft to write an abstraction layer /
virtual machine to allow apps from other platforms to run "natively" on
Windows phones? That would very significantly reduce the effort from apps
makers (depending on the quality of the VM of course).

They could even make Windows phone compatible with Android marketplace(s)...
why not?

------
igul222
I experienced this firsthand when I attended a Microsoft-sponsored WP7
development course at which they were giving free phones to developers. My
impression was that, for the price of maybe 30 phones, they got at least a
couple high quality apps on their store.

tl;dr: Microsoft is spending lots of money on WP7 apps, and it seems to be
working.

------
54mf
So who do I talk to about getting in on this? Faraday is already somewhat
similar to the look/feel of the platform. I'd love to bring the simplest,
cleanest calendar app to the simplest, cleanest mobile platform.

Call me already, Microsoft. Sheesh.

------
Steko
I love how Instagram is presented as a big hole in their app catalog when
Android got it like 3 days ago.

"Ms. Murphy declined to say whether Microsoft had paid for the app’s
development. "

I guess we know what that means.

------
shellehs
There are many similar apps, like ebooks, novles, sexy girl photo apps,
talking monkey, ... but lack of many useful / funny / cool apps.

------
magg
nothing new, MS basically begged Rovio to develop Angry Birds for WP7, ended
up paying a large sum of cash and provided phones for the developers and such

------
gcb
They did that for xbox, and it worked wonders.

~~~
cageface
The same strategy could certainly pay off here if they're willing to play the
long game. They've shown a lot more courage than Google in reconceptualizing
the UI and they seem to understand how important this platform is for their
long-term survival so I certainly wouldn't count them out yet.

~~~
SlipperySlope
But Microsoft could lose the long game too!

Suppose that Metro does not play well on ordinary PCs, and sales of
conventional laptop and desktop PCs, not only stop growing, but actually start
declining as users instead upgrade to very capable smartphone and tablets.

Once PC sales decline, then Microsoft profits will suffer in a
disproportionate manner because of all the money losing business units that
are supported by Windows, Office, and enterprise cash cows.

~~~
corporalagumbo
As a user of bother OS X 10.7 and WP7, I have to say at this point I have more
faith in Microsoft to successfully push the desktop UI envelope than Apple.
Lion is pretty much a mess of conflicting UI and usability concepts, and
Mountain Lion seems to be more of the same. Unless Apple is planning on
completely overturning their entire integrated UI model (causing massive
disruption to their carefully constructed iOS-OS X ecosystem) in the next
couple of years, I think we're just going to see more of the same - basically
a continued push to polish and refine the basic 90s desktop UI paradigm.
Microsoft in the mean time seem to be pretty intent on throwing out all the
old conventions and building the interface of the future.

The tech industry is interesting, success can be very short-lived, and can
come at a high cost - inflexibility. Microsoft is in a flexible position, and
can move much faster than Apple. Apple's success in the late 00's may
hamstring it for the next stage of the digital arms race. It's just a question
really of how sharp Microsoft's strategists are.

~~~
cageface
Apple has two very strong and mature products in iOS and OS X but they're both
kind of boring at this point. Android is too similar to iOS to really be
particularly interesting.

There's definitely room for somebody to step in and try something new. I
wouldn't have predicted that it would be Microsoft that did this but they seem
to be serious.

------
barista
As Microsoft tries hard, this looks like a good opportunity for hackers to set
shop focusing on a niche market.

------
foohbarbaz
Has anybody seen like real people buying Windows phones? Meh. Zune.

~~~
ttrashh
I always shake my head a bit when I see people mention Zune like this. The
hardware (and software on device) was fantastic. Much better than the iPods at
the time imho. Look at the reviews on Amazon sometime.
[http://www.amazon.com/Zune-Video-MP3-Player-
Platinum/dp/B002...](http://www.amazon.com/Zune-Video-MP3-Player-
Platinum/dp/B002JPITY8/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1333693397&sr=1-1)

The Zune software is beautiful. It's a little heavy on occasion but much
better than iTunes (again heavy imho). Zune pass is a great music service as
well. It's not as unique as it once was since Spotify and others let you play
what you want on demand but it's price similarly and you get to own a few of
the songs each month.

