6 ms·

A friend and I published some apps on the Microsoft store a few years ago, when it was still for Windows Phone 7. We've received several emails from Microsoft s

A friend and I published some apps on the Microsoft store a few years ago, when it was still for Windows Phone 7. We've received several emails from Microsoft saying we need to update this and that or our apps will be removed. Because the apps never did that well - not surprisingly in hindsight given the market size - we never updated them. However we still get checks occasionally from the proceeds. Microsoft never removed them. I think they're just desperate to have apps in their store and inflated app numbers they can brag about. They obviously know what to do, but just aren't doing it.

TheAnimus 13y ago
I think people have made a mistake bragging about 'app store numbers'. When Windows Phone 7 first came along, a lot of the tech press liked to simply score the platforms by the number of apps. Microsoft originally were pretty hot at stopping the 'free' or 'light' versions of apps being entered, as anything on their store can have a trail mode. From a usability perspective this is just great. However people would compare the app count against android, not discounting the android apps that were just trails etc. So sadly, as long as people keep talking about app count, it is not in the interest of MS to cleanse it.
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  I followed you until you shifted the blame from the tech press to consumers.
  - pogden 13y ago
    Consumers were not mentioned in the comment. The last sentence talks about "people" which in context means members of the tech press.
    - johnchristopher 13y ago
      Hmm. Maybe I am wrong. I think it's not that obvious though. "People" used in a topic where the "press" is mentioned clearly means !press* to me. Maybe the author could clarify if he sees my comment ? * not part of the press
      - TheAnimus 13y ago
        Erm I think we are diving a bit deep into semantics. I guess it depends on why people talk about app count, is that due to press or their own way of understanding? As a geek who uses the pretence he needs to evaluate all the platforms, I've iOS, Andriod, WP8, W8 devices. I have apps that I love which are only-on/muchbetter-on one platform. It is very hard to compare and contrast them. As much as I find my Lumia 1020 the most useful, and pleasurable to use device, I also have to have an Android or iOS tablet because of a must have app (SkyDemon if you are curious). These shortcuts, comparing just the app count, provide a way of letting people summarise the complex underlying problem.
shill 13y ago
Microsoft could take the opposite approach and ruthlessly purge garbage apps so they could market a high quality app store. It's 2014. Most people know by now that a smartphone only needs a dozen 4 and 5 star apps to be useful.
- immoderate 13y ago
  True, but I don't think quality is an MS KPI.
  - Avalaxy 13y ago
    I can confirm this, having interned at MSFT. There were a lot of deals where developers would get free devices if they published x apps. The only thing that mattered was the amount of apps, they didn't really look at the quality. Management had yearly goals that described how many new apps they needed in one year, but as far as I know, nothing was written about quality.
    - amaks 13y ago
      typical for !Microsoft management, why I am not surprised?
  - yulaow 13y ago
    I can confirm that too being a ms partner and having partecipated at some of their university labs. Their main goal is "We want you do some amount X of apps. It does not matter if they are all rss reader or just flashlight apps, you have to give us that amount X." I was not happy to hear that and also tried to discuss about it saying that I would prefere to focus on 2-3 apps making them great against just maxing X crap apps because I have not enough time until the deadline, but they just told me that those are orders "from above" and to focus on some great app just AFTER I made the X amount.
    - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
      Microsoft management must be very intelligent but they seem like utter morons - I want to replace all their keyboards, monitors and mice with 15 different broken ones and say "see lots of really crap ones is far better than one good one". Seriously it's not hard to market quality over quantity successfully is it? All app users are frustrated by low quality apps it would really make me notice if MS had a properly curated app store and said "we have less apps in our store because we value you and your time; excellence is our goal and we want our app developers to strive for that too; better quality, better performance, better life" [that sounds suitably hyperbolic].
chaz 13y ago
Apple, in its position of strength, made the game all about app counts. Year after year, they updated the total app count no matter how trivial the app, and declared victory over Google, Microsoft, Palm, and BlackBerry. Microsoft has been baited into the game, and can't possibly win. They need to change the conversation to one of strength. Ray Ozzie (while still at MS) was excoriated in the press for saying, "Apps don't make your phone special ... All the apps that count will be ported to every one of them." But I think he's right. Almost every app that I use every day is available on every platform, or has an excellent equivalent, but there are big gaps in niche categories and games.
- skyebook 13y ago
  While I understand how you arrive at the conclusion that the iPhone made the game all about app counts, I can't see how that stands up to Android coming along and ending up with a way larger selection. Even though it started as the biggest, Apple has kept a threshold in place that keeps out a lot of the crap. Not all, for sure, but you'd never get away with releasing something with the Facebook logo (or a poor approximation). The fact that Microsoft took the bait of buying into the size of the store rather than going for a curatorial approach is their own doing. Laying blame on anyone but their own decision makers for the quality of their app store doesn't make any sense.
  - chaz 13y ago
    Android still wins in sheer installed base. I believe all the metrics still show that iOS users -- on average -- use more data, buy more stuff, and install more apps than Android users, but there are still fewer of them. I don't have any data to support it, but I would guess that Android's foothold in international markets has allowed it to really grow out localized apps. http://www.businessinsider.com/androids-dominance-on-smartphones-2013-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/androids-dominance-on-smartph...
- philwelch 13y ago
  It's funny because in the 90's, Windows had many more apps than Macintosh and made a lot of hay out of that fact.
lawnchair_larry 13y ago
This is just glaring proof that whoever is in charge of Windows Phone at Microsoft is grossly incompetent. This is pure garbage and they've incentivized their team to go out and sell the wrong things. Microsoft has a lot of talent, but it seems that too many divisions have people in power that are very, very bad at their jobs, which undermines the whole business. It's a shame, because a lot of their efforts show potential. Windows Phone, Xbox One, Windows 8, have all had tragic blunders. The products seem to do so many things right, but suffered unnecessarily due to some astoundingly bad upper management decisions. They really need to solve that problem. I'm not sure that replacing Gates as chairman with the former CEO of Symantec, who led them through their bloat years and destroyed any good products they had, is a good start. I don't know anything about this new CEO though.

TheAnimus 13y ago

I think people have made a mistake bragging about 'app store numbers'. When Windows Phone 7 first came along, a lot of the tech press liked to simply score the platforms by the number of apps. Microsoft originally were pretty hot at stopping the 'free' or 'light' versions of apps being entered, as anything on their store can have a trail mode. From a usability perspective this is just great. However people would compare the app count against android, not discounting the android apps that were just trails etc. So sadly, as long as people keep talking about app count, it is not in the interest of MS to cleanse it.

johnchristopher 13y ago
I followed you until you shifted the blame from the tech press to consumers.
- pogden 13y ago
  Consumers were not mentioned in the comment. The last sentence talks about "people" which in context means members of the tech press.
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    Hmm. Maybe I am wrong. I think it's not that obvious though. "People" used in a topic where the "press" is mentioned clearly means !press* to me. Maybe the author could clarify if he sees my comment ? * not part of the press
    - TheAnimus 13y ago
      Erm I think we are diving a bit deep into semantics. I guess it depends on why people talk about app count, is that due to press or their own way of understanding? As a geek who uses the pretence he needs to evaluate all the platforms, I've iOS, Andriod, WP8, W8 devices. I have apps that I love which are only-on/muchbetter-on one platform. It is very hard to compare and contrast them. As much as I find my Lumia 1020 the most useful, and pleasurable to use device, I also have to have an Android or iOS tablet because of a must have app (SkyDemon if you are curious). These shortcuts, comparing just the app count, provide a way of letting people summarise the complex underlying problem.

shill 13y ago

Microsoft could take the opposite approach and ruthlessly purge garbage apps so they could market a high quality app store. It's 2014. Most people know by now that a smartphone only needs a dozen 4 and 5 star apps to be useful.

immoderate 13y ago
True, but I don't think quality is an MS KPI.
- Avalaxy 13y ago
  I can confirm this, having interned at MSFT. There were a lot of deals where developers would get free devices if they published x apps. The only thing that mattered was the amount of apps, they didn't really look at the quality. Management had yearly goals that described how many new apps they needed in one year, but as far as I know, nothing was written about quality.
  - amaks 13y ago
    typical for !Microsoft management, why I am not surprised?
- yulaow 13y ago
  I can confirm that too being a ms partner and having partecipated at some of their university labs. Their main goal is "We want you do some amount X of apps. It does not matter if they are all rss reader or just flashlight apps, you have to give us that amount X." I was not happy to hear that and also tried to discuss about it saying that I would prefere to focus on 2-3 apps making them great against just maxing X crap apps because I have not enough time until the deadline, but they just told me that those are orders "from above" and to focus on some great app just AFTER I made the X amount.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    Microsoft management must be very intelligent but they seem like utter morons - I want to replace all their keyboards, monitors and mice with 15 different broken ones and say "see lots of really crap ones is far better than one good one". Seriously it's not hard to market quality over quantity successfully is it? All app users are frustrated by low quality apps it would really make me notice if MS had a properly curated app store and said "we have less apps in our store because we value you and your time; excellence is our goal and we want our app developers to strive for that too; better quality, better performance, better life" [that sounds suitably hyperbolic].

chaz 13y ago

Apple, in its position of strength, made the game all about app counts. Year after year, they updated the total app count no matter how trivial the app, and declared victory over Google, Microsoft, Palm, and BlackBerry. Microsoft has been baited into the game, and can't possibly win. They need to change the conversation to one of strength. Ray Ozzie (while still at MS) was excoriated in the press for saying, "Apps don't make your phone special ... All the apps that count will be ported to every one of them." But I think he's right. Almost every app that I use every day is available on every platform, or has an excellent equivalent, but there are big gaps in niche categories and games.

skyebook 13y ago
While I understand how you arrive at the conclusion that the iPhone made the game all about app counts, I can't see how that stands up to Android coming along and ending up with a way larger selection. Even though it started as the biggest, Apple has kept a threshold in place that keeps out a lot of the crap. Not all, for sure, but you'd never get away with releasing something with the Facebook logo (or a poor approximation). The fact that Microsoft took the bait of buying into the size of the store rather than going for a curatorial approach is their own doing. Laying blame on anyone but their own decision makers for the quality of their app store doesn't make any sense.
- chaz 13y ago
  Android still wins in sheer installed base. I believe all the metrics still show that iOS users -- on average -- use more data, buy more stuff, and install more apps than Android users, but there are still fewer of them. I don't have any data to support it, but I would guess that Android's foothold in international markets has allowed it to really grow out localized apps. http://www.businessinsider.com/androids-dominance-on-smartphones-2013-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/androids-dominance-on-smartph...
philwelch 13y ago
It's funny because in the 90's, Windows had many more apps than Macintosh and made a lot of hay out of that fact.

lawnchair_larry 13y ago

This is just glaring proof that whoever is in charge of Windows Phone at Microsoft is grossly incompetent. This is pure garbage and they've incentivized their team to go out and sell the wrong things. Microsoft has a lot of talent, but it seems that too many divisions have people in power that are very, very bad at their jobs, which undermines the whole business. It's a shame, because a lot of their efforts show potential. Windows Phone, Xbox One, Windows 8, have all had tragic blunders. The products seem to do so many things right, but suffered unnecessarily due to some astoundingly bad upper management decisions. They really need to solve that problem. I'm not sure that replacing Gates as chairman with the former CEO of Symantec, who led them through their bloat years and destroyed any good products they had, is a good start. I don't know anything about this new CEO though.