Microsoft wants to create its own mobile app store to take on Apple and Google
The Times interviewed Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, to talk about Microsoft's struggles in the takeover of Activision Blizzard, largely concerning the Call of Duty franchise. The interview has a small segment that sheds light on a very important topic, the mobile app store industry.
(Screenshot of Microsoft Store app for PC used for reference)
Spencer had revealed that Microsoft wants to compete with Apple and Google in mobile app stores. It plans to create a rival service focusing on games. He also said that regulators support Microsoft's idea of creating a third-party mobile app store, and why wouldn't they? The EU for instance has passed a law to force gatekeepers, i.e. major players such as Google and Apple, to allow more choices for users as to where they download mobile apps from. Even the White House called out the duopoly of the two stores, terming them as anticompetitive. But, don't expect a miracle anytime soon, Spencer says that Microsoft is a long way from creating its own mobile app store.
You can read the article on The Times' website here.
Is it time for Microsoft to step into the mobile app market?
We have seen this before, Windows Phone was a nice operating system, but it didn't really offer much in terms of user experience and apps. I have a Lumia 640 (which still works), and I believe the reason why Windows Phone flopped, was because many popular apps weren't available on its store, especially Google apps such as YouTube and Gmail. While Google did not play nice with its rival mobile operating system, Microsoft had no such problems with Android or iOS. It has a couple of dozen apps on the Play Store and the App Store. Its mobile apps are all well-designed, and are used by millions of people around the world.
The point is, it doesn't have to start from scratch. Microsoft already has a foothold in the mobile industry, all its apps can be hosted on its own app store. But the important part is to actually get people to start using a Microsoft Store on their phone. That's an entirely different matter, and would require some additional effort. It could once again largely depend on the availability of third-party apps, or in this case, as Spencer said, mobile games. Attracting Android gamers to its mobile app store could be much easier, than to get users to switch to a new OS (and device) altogether. This is purely speculative, but I think it could actually work out, especially if Microsoft takes the Epic Games Store route of drawing in some exclusive titles, or offer some perks to users like how Microsoft Rewards does.
The Redmond company recently explained how it has provided developers the option to place ads on the Microsoft Store for PC, to help promote their apps. The announcement notes how "the lines between mobile and desktop have blurred", and also highlights that the desktop app distribution experience is similar to mobile. I think all of this adds up, provide developers an easy way to get their apps on the app store, along with some other incentives like featuring them prominently via ads, and they'll gladly bring the apps to it.
Neowin notes that Microsoft allows mobile gamers to access Xbox games via the Xbox app's cloud gaming feature. The tech giant has also partnered with the Amazon Appstore to enable people to use Android apps on their Windows 11 PCs. Clearly it has a lot of experience in the mobile app industry, and I think it is time for Microsoft to throw its hat in the ring, to level the playing field. At the very least, this could force Google and Apple to step up their game.
Are these articles AI generated?
Now the duplicates are more obvious.
This is below AI generated crap. It is copy of Microsoft Help website article without any relevant supporting text. Anyway you can find this information on many pages.
Yes, but why post the exact same article under a different title twice on the same day (19 march 2023), by two different writers?
1.) Excel Keyboard Shortcuts by Trevor Monteiro.
2.) 70+ Excel Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows by Priyanka Monteiro
Why oh why?
Yeah. Tell me more about “Priyanka Monteiro”. I’m dying to know. Indian-Portuguese bot ?
Probably they will announce that the taskbar will be placed at top, right or left, at your will.
Special event by they is a special crap for us.
If it’s Microsoft, don’t buy it.
Better brands at better prices elsewhere.
All new articles have zero count comments. :S
WTF? So, If I add one photo to 5 albums, will it count 5x on my storage?
It does not make any sense… on google photos, we can add photo to multiple albums, and it does not generate any additional space usage
I have O365 until end of this year, mostly for onedrive and probably will jump into google one
Photo storage must be kept free because customers chose gadgets just for photos and photos only.
What a nonsense. Does it mean that albums are de facto folders with copies of our pictures?
Sounds exactly like the poor coding Microsoft is known for in non-critical areas i.e. non Windows Core/Office Core.
I imagine a manager gave an employee the task to create the album feature with hardly any time so they just copied the folder feature with some cosmetic changes.
And now that they discovered what poor management results in do they go back and do the album feature properly?
Nope, just charge the customer twice.
Sounds like a go-getter that needs to be promoted for increasing sales and managing underlings “efficiently”, said the next layer of middle management.
When will those comments get fixed? Was every editor here replaced by AI and no one even works on this site?
Instead of a software company, Microsoft is now a fraud company.
For me this is proof that Microsoft has a back-door option into all accounts in their cloud.
quote “…… as the MSA key allowed the hacker group access to virtually any cloud account at Microsoft…..”
unquote
so this MSA key which is available to MS officers can give access to all accounts in MS cloud.This is the backdoor that MS has into the cloud accounts. Lucky I never got any relevant files of mine in their (MS) cloud.
>”Now You: what is your theory?”
That someone handed an employee a briefcase full of cash and the employee allowed them access to all their accounts and systems.
Anything that requires 5-10 different coincidences to happen is highly unlikely. Occam’s razor.
Good reason to never login to your precious machine with a Microsoft a/c a.k.a. as the cloud.
The GAFAM are always very careless about our software automatically sending to them telemetry and crash dumps in our backs. It’s a reminder not to send them anything when it’s possible to opt out, and not to opt in, considering what they may contain. And there is irony in this carelessness biting them back, even if in that case they show that they are much more cautious when it’s their own data that is at stake.