One advantage from coming to the market late is that you get the
chance to look at everyone else’s offering and make yours better. Not
that everyone takes that opportunity mind you given how many product
clones are out there that don’t come close to the original. However, in
this case, Microsoft’s announced App store
looks like it took the best and worst from the Google and Apple efforts
and created something better. Granted, it won’t show up in final form
for about a year and will have to evolve during that time to stay ahead
of Apple and Google by launch, but it does show Microsoft listened.
Problems with the Apple App Store
Apple’s store is the gold standard, more people are making money
using it than using Google’s, Apple isn’t having the malware problems
that Google has, and the average quality of the Apple App store appears
to be higher (likely because this is where people tend to focus their
app efforts). However, this store has had issues
with being overly aggressive in terms of killing popular apps from
those that are political to apps that appear to compete with Apple’s own
offerings to apps that seem to do things Apple doesn’t want to be done.
In addition, people who develop for this store often complain about
the approval process where your app goes in, but doesn’t seem to come
out anytime soon – and if it isn’t approved, the reason isn’t often
clear. Finally, Apple is pretty aggressive when it comes around to
sharing revenue in that they want a large chunk (30%) of it even if what
you are doing is selling books through your own free book app.
Windows 8
Problems with the Google App Store
Google is vastly more free and easy and they allow side-loading,
which means you don’t even have to use their app store if you don’t want
to. On the other hand, revenue, let alone profit, has been elusive to
most developers and the Android platform has been highlighted by companies like McAfee
as the place where malware is most likely to go to feed on your
information. Not profitable or not secure isn’t a good combination for
developers or users and recently Dell abandoned one of their products and Amazon forked it
to create their own, more secure, version tied to their own app store.
In short, Google is easier to work with than Apple, but the downside is
vastly more pronounced for both the users and the developers.
Microsoft App Store
Microsoft’s store will be heavily curated like Apple’s, but not
restricted and the approval process is instrumented so that developers
will know where their app is in the approval process. Side loading won’t
be allowed by default and only in a controlled fashion. If you have an
app like the Kindle eBook reader, anything you sell through it doesn’t
come with a fee for Microsoft. Content apps are not taxed by Microsoft
and their 30% fee on regular applications drops to 20% after the first
$25,000. Finally, there are vast improvements in locating applications
something that often proves to be a little difficult in the massive
application repositories both Apple and Google have.
In short, from a developers perspective, granted once Windows 8
actually is purchased, they get more money from each sale and less
aggravation through the approval process. From a user’s perspective they
get less malware, more controversial applications, which they can find
more easily. And from a competitive perspective, at least on paper,
Microsoft has the best store if Windows 8 sells well, which, given the
massive marketing campaign and size of the Windows base is at least
plausible.
Timing
This impressive effort showcases Microsoft was listening in that it
deals well with each of the shortcomings in the competitors’ products.
However we are about a year away from when Windows 8 comes out and a lot
will happen with both competitive stores during that time. We’ll
revisit this when Windows 8 launches and see if it can maintain these or
find other advantages by that time.
Rob Enderle in Business Products on December 12
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