Updated Microsoft Store App Developer Agreement: New Revenue Share

That sounds about right, although 5% (or 15%) is a pretty good deal IMO for worldwide payment processing, installer and update distribution, DRM, and their built-in tools like crash reporting, push notifications, analytics, affiliation, and attribution.

So if they are browsing your website, decide they’ll probably purchase it, but then later they open up the Microsoft store and search for it there, you lose money you would’ve had if they’d immediately downloaded it from a link on your website?

So it’s worth 10% if someone uses the search bar in the store? Or if it’s on a top100 list? Those top100 are probably the apps that are most likely to push back against a 15% cut though.

It's obvious from that structure that Microsoft realizes they are part of a larger ecosystem and that they aren't a dominant channel.

> if you rely mostly on your own marketing methods, then it should get less

That's usually how it is. You rely on your own website and blog for organic results and Google or Facebook or some other channel (billboards, TV, podcasts, etc.) for paid advertising. Microsoft and other app stores don't really fit into this equation, they're only good for partnership deals and SEO is harder to do in an app store.

Microsoft is just recognizing the reality for customers and realizing that they can possibly make up for it in volume. If I'm saving 10% from this new fee structure, that's more cash that I can re-invest into advertising in outside channels.

The app is going to be in the Store either way tho, it's only a question of how the user ends up there.

Well, Microsoft is at an impasse here: I work for a large Enterprise, and we of course use Windows almost exclusively, and perhaps this is not their target, yet I will say this: None of our apps are going through that store. They're all coming from direct from vendor purchases, of which Microsoft gets Zero.

under this model, it encourages (perhaps) some of the smaller/medium Enterprise vendors to give up having to deal with a payment system at all, in exchange for simplified distribution (if I read this correctly) and no more payment handling, and in exchange MS gets a 5% cut.

This to me makes complete sense. Most of the Windows ecosystem for software is mostly out side of Microsoft's hands. Indeed, it is the #1 strength of the platform beside its ubiquity.

I actually think this is a brilliant insight on the side of Microsoft, by inverting this model they get a non-zero slice of a a pie they previously did not have.

It also encourages more vendors to uptake the distribution model via their Store, which I think is ultimately what they want more than a cut of sales in aggregate.

Say nothing of the home user, who beyond MS Office perhaps never transacts at all with Microsoft when they buy other software.

I was a WP7&8 user as well as developer and yes the whole story left me a bitter taste, especially at the end. I had fun getting phones for free, participating at MS hackhatons, making friends and of course learning to develop mobile apps but it seems every decisions by MS during after Mango have been against the consumer. Also at the time the store took 30% as well...

My issues with the store apps are that most of them act like "apps" and not like "programs/applications". For example, they close on their own with no warning. I tried to use the store version of the Pandora app, but it would be closed when I left it paused for too long. Same with Facebook's Messenger. I don't want that. I want to be able to control when I open and close a program.

Yes, for example I am using Adobe XD and Paint.NET installed from the store.

I also have a couple of other games and utility apps.

Having the sandbox around is really nice from my user point of view.

Then as Windows/Web dev, I do like the rebooted version of COM as well.

I have - once opened up the app store to search for things on windows. It was after searching the web - but I barely use windows so the fact that I did at all is pretty remarkable really.

I found things closer to what I was looking for than I did on the web too, but still came to the conclusion that what I was looking for doesn't exist (a good non-mobile app for marking up pdf's with a stylus - the closest I've found is Microsoft Edge of all things).

I've started to install stuff from the store when it's awailable in the past year. Stuff like WinSCP is great - it's always current, it's 1-click, and developer also got some money from me for the effort.

They were talking about this change in 2017, and actually said it will come in 2018,so they kind of actually took too long to implement this.

That said, I'd say the Store is not breaking any records. It looks like their reaction to that is to allow other stores on Windows while taking a step back and concentrating on being a good platform.

A lot of classic x86 Win32 apps are in the Store these days, too. It is a safer way to buy and install such things. (Photoshop, iTunes, Office, etc.)

Windows is continuing to expand to ARM even without phones right now. The HoloLens 2 is reported to be built around a Qualcomm Snapdragon.

Windows 10 ARM tablets/netbooks are a product again, in trying to compete with Chrome OS, and it isn't a repeat of the Windows "RT" tablets because Windows 10 on ARM now supports x86 emulation and a lot of classic 32-bit Win32 applications.

Just because you currently don't have a use for the Store doesn't mean that no one has a use for the Store. It's nice finally having a proper central app installer/updater without every application developer installing their own baroque updater and running it on every Windows startup. Getting rid of the Apple Updater alone by installing iTunes from the Windows Store is such a relief.

I think this system would work well for game platforms too, such as Steam. A big point of contention for Steam is, how much the platform does for advertising your game. By having two separate taxes depending on how the game was found, you can have the best of both worlds. If you do your own brand building and advertising, then those sales get a better cut, while the platform can also get their cut for the advertising they do.

This also aligns the incentives on what the platforms advertises, to some extent.

30% take is pretty standard across a lot of industries when dealing with affiliate arrangements.

They've attempted to do that before: https://www.theverge.com/2013/3/19/4124548/microsoft-paying-...

All that lead to was a bunch of similar looking apps of questionable quality flooding the store.

Are there any stats on how successful / unsuccessful their store is?

They don't force you to do UWP any more. You can publish Win32 apps to the Store. For what it's wort, doesn't seem like lots of developers are doing it.

You can also publish command line apps to the store. Which is cool...

30% on one-off purchases of apps and IAPs, and 15% of subscriptions.

Maybe, but from a user perspective steam is incredible. They were the first major game distributor to introduce a 2 week no-questions-asked refund period, in-home streaming works amazingly (even shooting games work at an acceptable level), their DRM isn't egregious (for example, charging back only revokes the licences that were charged back on, it doesn't close your entire account like on Xbox), and the updates Valve releases for the client are consistently good. The only problem I can remember them having is their entire lack of support, and apparently they have great support now. Unless people stop offering games on Steam, I don't plan to buy them anywhere else.

Games are still 30%, so no.

Apparently Microsoft believes that there is demand for a Windows Store and its apps, but games on the Windows Store are so successful that they don't need the cut.

I would not have thought that possible, but I don't have access to Microsoft's business metrics.

Seems like there might be more to it than that, since Slack is written in Electron and is in the Windows Store.

Heh. This reminds me of something else with using Microsoft. My employer uses Office365 with a smart card authentication for email. In order to use the encryption features, you have to enable an activeX plugin from Microsoft. Microsoft Edge does not trust the Microsoft published plugin and disables it every time I boot up Edge (EDIT: I should note even when I attempt to enable it, it shows up as "disabled" on the extension tabs, and I have never gotten encryption/signing working on Edge). It only works on Internet Explorer (which Microsoft is actively trying to get people off).

I get the impression they don't do extensive Q&A with their products.

Does your application allow arbitrary web browsing, or just display its own content in a web view?

I do have an electron app on the Windows Store which is not particularly popular. I don't think Electron is just the reason why you were rejected. They might reject you once but keep trying might work. Do provide reason why your electron app is using something native that a normal website cannot achieve.

Hi, I'm a Microsoft employee and own the certification for apps. Electron is allowed. I checked with my team it. The failure is related to browsing capabilities which have to comply with 10.2.1.

This strikes me as a very deceptive post - I hope not intentionally.

They aren't rejecting your code because you use Electron. They are rejecting your code because you use Electron to browse the web.

To see why this is a bad idea, one only has to look so far as the third post currently on the from page of HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19321775 Do you think that microsoft can reasonably rely on this patch being promptly applied to all the electron apps in it's store?

Electron may primarily be developed by GitHub, a recent acquisition, but it is not well suited for this purpose.

You can see that this post is tricking other people in the replies to it, e.g. the one discussing slack, the first reaction of the microsoft employee that kindly replied, and the person who replied saying "I have a electron app in the microsoft store".

I think that's part of it. It's also a more open platform, so they have to compete with, say, Stripe or Digital River etc. on their commission percentages to get the big Windows software titles on board.

Compared to the massive cut Apple takes on their app stores Microsoft's revenue split seems pretty generous.

I downvoted your comment because you aren't being intellectually honest to suggest it makes sense for them to provide payment processing, update management and DRM for free to app developers when at the very least they'd be losing big on the credit card processing side. So your comment reads as an elitist jab against Microsoft and not actual constructive criticism.