Microsoft has announced that the Windows Marketplace for Mobile will support Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 users by the end of this year. The company announced this at this year’s Worldwide Partner conference. Windows Mobile 6.5 support will be available immediately.
This is a very important move for Microsoft because this will ensure that developers can tap in to the current Windows Mobile users. The company has given an in-house estimate of 30 million such users. The company has also declared ill start accepting submissions for the marketplace from t he 27 of July, which is only 11 days away. The company will then start testing and certifying these apps for the launch.
The store is set to launch simultaneously with the new Windows Phones (a new name given to phones running on Windows Mobile). This is supposed to happen sometime this fall. Microsoft is also planning to start a consumer focused ad campaign to build up awareness about the Windows phones. If these ads are anything like the ads from the ‘laptop hunter’ series, we will be in for some laughs for sure.
The objective that Microsoft that Microsoft is trying to achieve here is very obvious. It is trying to create something similar to the Apple App Store for the iPhone. However, Microsoft will have overcome more than a few hurdles. First of all, the Windows
Mobile Market is fast shrinking. This is mainly thanks to the multiple alternatives available today. Windows Mobile is directly up against the constantly growing iPhone, the newly launched WebOS, the Google Android Platform and the ever-present Symbian platform. With the combination of all these, Microsoft is going to have a very hard time convincing people to buy the new ‘Windows Phones’.
Another hurdle is the fact that a few of the mobile handset manufacturers and mobile network carriers are planning to have their own marketplaces to sell software to their users. So that would mean more resistance towards Microsoft’s Marketplace for Mobile plans.
Microsoft has been losing on its home ground since a long time by trying to push closed and proprietary solutions. It failed with its WMA and WMV codecs when mp3 was adopted by all and now they are trying to push Silverlight as an alternative to flash. Has someone told Microsoft that they join in way too late?
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