As we reported a couple of day ago Microsoft revealed what’s in store for the upcoming Windows 8 Store which is slated to be released in February next year.
Yesterday at an event Microsoft previewed the much awaited Windows 8 Store.Earlier this year at the build developer conference when they showcased the Windows 8 Developer Preview they also indicated that the Windows 8 store will allow the apps licensing,downloading and purchasing of the Metro Based Applications over the Windows 8 Store.However when it comes to purely desktop based apps those apps can only be allowed to be promoted over the store,but are not allowed to be downloaded,though the developers can publish the links for the same.
Talking about yesterday’s event,addressed by Corporate vice president Antoine Leblond,who revealed more details about the store and the revenue model amongst other things.Windows 8 Store which will be released along side the beta release of Windows 8 in the month of February next year will be showcasing only Free apps at the time of launch and the app submission will be invite only.
The revenue model goes like this,Upto 25,000 USD the revenue share base is 70%, when the app will cross the 25,000 USD mark the revenue share will rise to 80% for the lifetime of that app.Individual developers would have to pay $49 USD while the companies would have to pay $99 USD for registration.
For easy access and discovery of the apps over the store the landing page of the store is highly optimized with categories like latest, most popular, and fast rising apps and users will also get personalized application recommendations.The store will also feature an optimized search with panning through categories fast and fluid.
The store app catalog will be indexed by the search engines which will also include direct linking to the app pages.So users searching for the app over the search engine would find it easy to spot it.
The search will lead to the web version of the app listing and from there,if you are on Windows 8 the page will direct you to the Windows 8 Store,else it’ll display a message like”app is available on Windows 8″.
Talking about the Payment processing and structure for the app,the store will feature Trials as well as in-app purchases.Developers who want their own version of transaction mechanism for in app purchases can do the same with windows 8 store.So multiple choices for the end users as well as the developers for payment methods.
Yesterday they also announced an exciting contest for the developers who are eagerly waiting for their apps to be available by the time the store launches with the Windows 8 beta in February,more on the contest in coming posts.We also now have a dedicated blog for Windows 8 Store just like the Building Windows 8 Blog will be updated with the latest happenings in the Windows 8 Store front.
The Windows 8 Store is the next big thing from the developers point of view in terms of global reach and potential market for their app with over 500 million Windows 7 licensed users all over the world with potentially same number of users who’ll upgrade to Windows 8 when it launches and even if the potential upgraders with 50% upgrades from Windows 7 to Windows 8 would still put a huge number of 250 million user base with a worldwide reach in as many as 213 markets.
Checkout the Preview of Windows 8 Store:
