Why? Why? Why doesn’t Microsoft have a marketplace for Windows? How friggin hard could it be? Those pointy toed shoe wearing dorks at Apple seems to have figured it out for their crummy phone. The morlocks at Google seem to be doing it pretty well for Android. Even that redheaded step child Windows Phone7 has a freaking marketplace.
Part of the success of Windows has always been developers and the huge number of applications available. What has really made the iPhone and Android phones successful is their marketplaces. The phones themselves are nice, but not really all that great. Until you can load apps, smart phones are pretty dumb.
For an entrepreneurial developer like myself I’m really attracted to the iPhone and Android platform because of their marketplaces. Those marketplaces represent an easily accessible distribution channel for my products. It means marketing is easier, meaning that the distance between my hard work and getting paid for it is that much shorter. I can tell prospective customers: go to the marketplace and buy my application.
However, I have mad skills on Windows. I can’t just tell the guy I meet at Starbucks to download my application from the Windows marketplace. I have to tell him to go to my web-site and get it there. You think he is going to remember my URL for more than 15 seconds? He’ll remember the Windows Marketplace. Not my URL. I don’t care if my URL was yomomma.com. He isn’t going to remember. He’ll remember Windows Marketplace or app store. End of story.
So what am I to do? Wish the Ballmer would just friggin retire, get BillG to quit screwing around and comeback to save his company. Or Microsoft needs to hire a technical person to run the show. Not another friggin MBA type. Somebody who has a vision that goes beyond the tip of his nose. And while they are at it: fire all those friggin directions and VPs from IBM that they have been hiring. They are killing it!
While I wait for that to happen: I’m going to start learning how to get .NET code to run on Android.