Microsoft takes a shot at Apple's App Store

Microsoft has announced today that they will be starting a new contest that will promote their Windows Marketplace for Mobiles. The Windows Marketplace for Mobiles is basically the Windows Mobile/Microsoft equivalent of the Apple App store, which appears to be preparing for a large scale blitz on the apple app store claiming that developers will have access to 30 million users and that this will be a very good way to make money. Now, getting to the contest, there are a few benefits that Microsoft is trying to promote in order to get people to develop for the Marketplace.

The first thing is, they are giving away Microsoft Surface tables to the winners of four categories: the categories in who earns the most revenue (downloads x price), who has the most downloaded free app, the most useful (judged by panel), and the most playful (judged by panel). In addition to this, they will be giving away an SDK with the Surface device to allow for them to develop for surface as well.

They will also receive online marketing and advertisements in order to further promote their app. In addition to all of this, the winners will also receive a "one of a kind trophy" which has yet to be explained. Maybe it will have a hologram of Ballmer doing his famous "developers, developers, developers" mantra. If you’d like to learn more about this contest as well as developing for Window Mobile devices, you can check out the contest page. This contest runs from launch until December 31st, 2009.

In addition, they explain how the apps will be validated and submitted as well as what their ultimate goal is, to create a global marketplace for Windows phones. Although, they aren’t really saying how much they want to displace the usefulness and importance of the Apple App store.

On a slightly funny (and political) note, if you are a citizen of Cuba; Iran; North Korea; or Sudan you may not participate per the contest rules.

Personally, as someone who is running on a Windows Mobile Device [HTC Touch Pro] I couldn’t be happier to see Microsoft is trying their hardest to give Apple a run for their money. And hopefully, this contest will give me a much greater choice of new apps to select from. Because really, most windows mobile users don’t really have much selection right now and while there are still many good apps out there, they are either ridiculously priced or very old (with a few exceptions).