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Microsoft Working On Its Own App Store
CWmike writes "Microsoft is working on a software distribution scheme along the lines of Apple's iPhone App Store, CEO Steve Ballmer said yesterday at a developer's conference in Sydney, Australia. 'There's not much money being made, but the general concept of giving developers a way not only to get their code distributed, but to really get visibility for the code, is a good idea,' Ballmer said. Ballmer hinted that something similar would be coming soon from Microsoft. While he said Micrsoft was not ready to detail the works in progress, he said '... fear not, we're hard at work, and you'll see some of the benefits [of that] with some of the concepts, particularly Facebook's.'"
you mean like ripping off unix? what a clever idea that one was.
This company is pathetic. Don't they every ever come up with an original idea?
Just like F/OSS.
Or Linux.
Viruses available for your mobile devices upon request.
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father! Prepare to die!
Are you referring to the Microsoft Software and Music stores that were online before iTunes and the iPhone store?
Wait, that makes Apple the monkey... Right?
Microsoft is talking about expanding their online sofware distribution to portable devices like the Zune and Windows Mobile. This is more of a revamp focusing on specific software for specific devices from the online store.
You do realize people have been buying music and software from Microsoft Online services for over 7 years right? You also realize people have been renting movies online via Windows Media Center and now the XBox 360 since 2003? Or does the Apple distortion field make everyone not notice what 'other' people are doing if Apple didn't make it?
Now do you feel stupid or just really stupid?
And, on Windows it will probably actually WORK. When you go to your library or whatever they call it and you want the LATEST VERSION of an app, it will probably actually BE THERE and run. You won't have to go to a 'backports' repository, or turn on 'unstable someshit' or go and unzip a rar of a deb and the run 15 command line package installs in order to get the latest version. You'll click - and it will install. Imagine that!
Cue the 'that was easy' button.
Yes if you ignore the multibillion dollar cost of the actual console which has extremely high failure rates.
Thats quite a big thing to ignore you know. :P
This could render those pesky OSS programs a thing of the past. If Microsoft hosts and vets downloads like Apple does with the iPhone, it means less choice for users, as well extra costs for vendors and distributors of free software.
-- Cheers!