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Jul. 15, 2009

Microsoft has launched its new Windows Marketplace for Mobile Apps, and will begin accepting mobile applications for all 29 supported countries on July 27, in advance of its launch with Windows Mobile 6.5 scheduled to go live in October.

The software giant was in fact supposed to launch its Marketplace on July 1st but ran into a few issues initially.

Microsoft's new Windows Marketplace for Mobile will support Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 by the end of this year.

The company says it's working closely with the mobile developer community to design the strongest possible partner opportunity into the Windows Marketplace.

The software behemoth will announce details of an application development contest when the Marketplace for Mobile opens later on July 29.

The company is behind in bringing its application offerings to market. Apple, Nokia, Research In Motion, Palm and even Android have all rolled out their respective stores in the past twelve months.

But few realized the difficulty of duplicating Apple’s success with the Apple App Store. It's a lot clearer now.

Recently, the Palm Pre was widely criticized for launching its iPhone competitor alongside a mobile applications store that had little to offer in the way of smartphone add-ons.

A few wireless industry analysts say an available catalog of mobile apps has become a major factor for cell phone users when deciding on a specefic device.

Overall, mobile apps are now a very hot topic. Anybody who calls himself a player in this market needs to have his or her own apps store in order to succeed in this highly competitive field.

It will in deed be interesting to see how this ongoing trend develops itself in the coming months. There's even a chance that one unexpected name or two could soon 'pop out of the woodwork' and play catch up with the rest of the pack.

We shall see...

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Source: Microsoft.