Microsoft Windows Store - Application Download Center
Microsoft is launching Windows Store, their download center of applications for their upcoming operating system Microsoft Windows 8, along with the proclaimed Windows 8 developer preview that is set to be out in February 2012. The Windows 8 application store has facilities for purchase and trial with support for subscriptions.
To aid discoverability, Windows Store apps will be indexed by search engines and developers can link from their website directly to their app by inserting a line of code.
With a 500 million Windows users base, Microsoft is well placed to trump both the Apple and Android marketplaces if they play their cards right. To attract developers, Microsoft is offering a better revenue split model of 70/30 to developer and Microsoft. But once the app makes $25,000 in sales, the share slides into the developers favor at 80/20.
Further features of the store include fully functional trials of apps and the ability to develop apps in HTML 5, Javascript and the C languages. When the store launches it will only offer free apps which have been submitted by invitation but Microsoft is holding a competition for developers to be the first ones inside the store and is offering Azure hosting and a developer tablet as rewards.
