Microsoft Creating App Store for Windows 8?
Microsoft wants Windows 8 to 'have an app for that' too.
These days the talk of App Stores is all about Apple for its iPhone and iPad, as well as the Android Marketplace for those running the Google Mobile OS. RIM, Palm and Nokia are also players in the apps market, so it's definitely the new way to distribute software.
Microsoft could be planning the same sort of thing, but for the full-blown desktop OS Windows 8. According to the leaked slides, Microsoft wants to make it easy for users "getting applications they want, that they can feel confident in, that they can use on any Windows 8 device."
Windows 8 won't be confined just to the desktop and laptop space; Microsoft is aiming to make the operating system suitable for slates, laptops and all-in-ones. While Windows 7 already accomplishes this, the addition of the App Store makes it more crucial for Microsoft to ably handle software offerings consistently across the various form factors.
(source: MSFTKitchen)
- Chrome Overtakes Safari As Number 3 Browser
- Foxconn Installing Safety Nets to Catch Jumpers?
- Win A GeForce GTX 480, DeathAdder Bundle
- QOTD: How Should We Test Rugged Laptops?
- Consumers Spend More $$ on Peripherals Than PCs?
- Seagate ''Ships'' First 3 TB External HDD
- Mushkin Announces SandForce Callisto Deluxe SSD
- Windows 8 to Focus on Faster Boot Times, Logins
- Sapphire Does 3D Gaming with Eyefinity
- King's Quest Fan Project is Alive Again, for FREE
- Asus Eee Netbook Will Have Desktop-like CPU
- Sony Recalling Over 500,000 Vaio Laptops
- WoW May go Free-To-Play; Diablo II Turns 10
- Fujitsu Launches 12-inch Convertible Core i3 Tablet
- Cisco Reveals Android Tablet with 4G-support
- Firefox 4.0: Browser Tabs on Top or Bottom?
- Dell Employees Knew Its Computers Would Fail
- Microsoft Shows it is Winning ''By the Numbers''
Err, isn't an app for windows simple "Software" that you can download or buy anywhere atm anyway?!
@Skid: Yes.
But, don't shoot the idea down now. For instance, the fairly popular Ubuntu Operating System has something similar to an appstore (although it has fundemental differences).
And we all know Windows won't become a closed platform any time soon, so this is either good or a waste of Microsoft's time.
From a developers stand point it would certainly have advantages to have your software displayed in a store run by Microsoft that accessiable directly from Windows. However Microsoft will want to make money some how and if its via commission or charging for software to be in the store, developers might be put off due to the number of other ways they could sell or distribute their software.
Also someone could code in an App Store for all current versions of Windows and launch it without charging for people to put their software in it before Windows 8 even comes out.
This would be cool in the sense that we might not need to run around all over the web looking for an application; but will find it right in the store, that too certified.
This is assuming that the apps hosted are actually sensible.
I agree its a good idea in theory. just how its going to work will decide if it works or not.
A free (to the user)App Store where you can look up say burning software or image editing software that you know will run without issue. Then great.
If they want to start charging even micro amounts for the Apps then they can think again as far as I'm concerned.
I feel they need to be very careful. W7 was a big success for them with the public now having a better view of M$ than before i can remember. Anything that can be viewed as an attempt to make things proprietary or profiteering would be bad
Mactronix
Just as Apple's,Nokia's etc I suspect it will be a mixed of free apps and paid for apps
Hopefully, if this does happen, it will also serve as a way to keep our applications up to date. Perhaps that way we can finally see an end to the mini programs that load at startup purely to check for updates to Java, Adobe Acrobat, Flash etc