In a bid to carve out its share of the app market,Microsoft recently announced that it would be launching the Windows Phone Marketplace for its Windows 8 phones in 180countries. The Microsoft blog states that users will be able to browse and download apps at Marketplace when the operating system releases later this year. Currently present in only63 countries, this move is a big leap, roughly three times the current number, for Microsoft. Meanwhile, developers will be able to submit apps via App Hub from 38 markets. Windows Phone 8 boastsof in-built app purchase/sales features.This means that you can purchase apps as well assell apps and services from within the app itself.The blog states: “App Hub will provide tools formanaging in-app commerce. You can specify what you want to sell, choose prices and countries to make it available, and use App Hub reporting tools to generate detailed sales reports.” The phone’s operating system also features a new market for custom enterprise apps called Company Hub, which allows developers to provide services and apps for enterprise solutions. The blog also revealed that Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on both Marketplace and App Hub, which have been re-built from scratch to “be more robust and scalable”. The re-built features promise “faster certification and publishing times, better reporting options, and more”. Another interesting feature is theautomatic filtering of apps based on screen resolution and other key characteristics, helping to better target audience, thus increasingcustomer satisfaction andlowering support costs. Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system is going to be a giant shift in terms of design and interface. Thecompany recently mentioned on the MSDN blog that Windows 8 was going to support HD video calling, 3D video and adaptive bitrate streaming and now they’ve introduced the new Photos app.With thenew Photos app, users can connect their Microsoft account to services like Facebook and Flickr to get all the photos and all those memories by simply signing in to Windows 8. There is seamless integration with Windows Phone as well, so you can simply sync all your photos using SkyDrive. This makes the Photos app in Windows 8 a greatway to show off your photos without having to huddle around a phone. Even though you took your photos on your phone, you can view them on your PC, just about as fast as you cantake them. Another feature that they’ve spoken about onthe blog is the SkyDrive Desktop App. If you install the SkyDrive desktop app, you can choose to have all of your photos automaticallysent and saved to SkyDrive. Any PC with theSkyDrive desktop app installed will show up in the Photos app. So by simply running SkyDrive desktop app on the PC(s)where all your photos reside, the Photos app will reach back to that PC, so that you can look at your old photos, alongside your recent ones. You’ll soon be revisiting photos you forgot you had. The really long list of countries Windows PhoneMarketplace will be launched in can be found on the Official Windows Phone Blog .
