Onward and UpwardKeith Ward, Editor in Chief, Visual Studio Magazine
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Build a Windows 8 App, Get $100 from Microsoft
Microsoft is pulling out all the stops to get apps into its Windows Store and Windows Phone Store -- to the point of paying you to do it.
This blog by Jennifer Marsman spells out the details. Basically, you create an app and publish it to either app store, and Microsoft will pay you $100. The cash cutoff per dev is $2,000, so when you've written 20 apps, the money stops. Note that you can't create 20 apps for one store or the other -- you'd have to create 10 for each to get the full amount (it's limited to 10 apps per publisher ID; if you publish to both stores, you have two IDs, hence the $2,000).
The promotion started March 8 and runs through June 30, or until 10,000 apps are published under this promotion. One more thing: you can't publish the same basic app 10 times, changing a button or other minor tweak and republishing it as a different app. Marsman says the "each app you submit to a single platform must be substantially unique and different."
Now, is it worth your time to create Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 apps for a hundred bucks? That's a question only you can answer. On the other hand, if you've wanted to try writing software for that platform, this at least assures you'd get some remuneration for your efforts.
This deal is reminiscent of BlackBerry's recent attempts to woo developers by guaranteeing they'd make at least $10,000 per app (if the app made at least $1,000 in its first year out, but less than $10,000). It's hard to convince devs to build apps for non-Android or -iOS devices, seeing as how the return is generally a lot lower on those platforms. The upside is that there's also a lot less competition in those app markets.
Posted by Keith Ward on 03/12/2013