There's Apple in my Microsoft

[wraith808]

Carol made a joke (I think it was Carol) that the discourse was:

Apple: Do something that makes money but is stupid
Microsoft: Do what Apple does.

She's pretty much right on the money- an e-mail that I just received from Microsoft:

We’re excited to announce new benefits that will help you get your
apps out to millions of people to see, try and buy! As an MSDN
subscriber, you’ll receive one-time 12 month Windows Store and
Windows Phone Developer accounts!

With a developer account, you can
• Create apps
• Publish your apps in all available markets
• Watch your progress with detailed reports

WINDOWS STORE DEVELOPER ACCOUNT AVAILABILITY:

You can sign-up for a company account starting today! Simply go
to the benefit overview page to get your registration code and start
the registration process. You'll also see Windows Store Developer
account listed on My Account. Individual account registration will
become available later this fall.

WINDOWS PHONE DEVELOPER ACCOUNT AVAILABILITY:

Later this month, you’ll be able to sign up for your Windows Phone
Developer account. You’ll know it’s ready when you see the benefit
list on My Account. Just click on ‘Get Code’ to get your promo code
and start the registration process.

Enjoy your new developer accounts and best of luck!

Look familiar?  :;headdesk::

[Renegade]

Yep. Very familiar. All the mobile platforms do this - force you to get an account... You register your applications in the online UI, blah blah blah. It's a way to keep track of you. Their excuse is "security". Yeah. Right.

It's all about developer lock-in. (If you could peer over my shoulder, you'd see internal documents going over exactly these kinds of things.) And they have oh so many ways to get that done...

[dtsouers]

There were other companies who had app stores, way before Apple.

Steam is an example of an download/updater for games, it was around way before ITunes started doing non-music. In fact, Steam has now started selling utilities/applications too.

[Carol Haynes]

Carol made a joke (I think it was Carol)

-wraith808 (August 08, 2012, 11:25 AM)

Sounds like me ...  

But was it a joke 

[wraith808]

There were other companies who had app stores, way before Apple.

Steam is an example of an download/updater for games, it was around way before ITunes started doing non-music. In fact, Steam has now started selling utilities/applications too.

-dtsouers (October 20, 2012, 10:54 AM)

Steam is quite a different animal.  They don't have lock in to every part of the ecosystem.  That's a big thing to leverage.  Steam is more of a distribution platform than what these are.