> In a new US marketing effort, Microsoft is offering developers $100 per app for newly published applications submitted to the Windows Phone Store or the Windows Store by June 30th. Developers can net $2,000 in total by submitting up to 10 apps to each store.
https://www.theverge.com/2013/3/19/4124548/microsoft-paying-...
I expect some of its current shovelware still dates back to those efforts.
I spent more time doing the app submission than I did writing the app. They didn't care what it was. Similarly Blackberry had a similar program a little while later where I just ported the same app and got a Playbook tablet.
It was fun as a poor college kid, but look where it got both of them.
Don't think it helped the Windows Phone ecosystem at all because instead of a few decent apps, you now had to wade through hundreds of terrible apps and sometimes you'd get lucky and find a decent one.
Sounds like a perfect copy of Google Play.
I could feel the submission process get tighter as time passed. I think the idea was to see what apps people come up with and what gains traction? Kind of like the story where the management lets people on the grass and paves a walkway on the most walked path?
I was given a pretty decent free Windows phone after a hackathon by a Microsoft rep with basically no strings attached other than a verbal promise that if I ever finished the game I was working on during the Hackathon, I would put it on Windows store alongside any other platform.
They really wanted those numbers to go up.