Ballmer: Microsoft working on App Store-like software distribution
But he rejects the idea of using WebKit to power IE — Computerworld) Microsoft Corp. is working on a software distribution scheme along the lines of Apple's iPhone App Store, CEO Steve Ballmer said yesterday at a developer's conference in Sydney, Australia.
Context & Ripple Effects
In late 2008, Ballmer was signaling on multiple fronts that Microsoft needed new distribution and platform plays: weeks earlier he previewed a 'Windows Cloud' operating system aimed at cloud-delivered software, and the day before this story he expressed interest in an open-source browser engine. Now, speaking at a developer conference in Sydney, he confirmed Microsoft was building an App Store-style distribution scheme — an implicit concession that Apple's iPhone App Store had defined a new template for how software reaches users. The arc continued two years later when Ballmer publicly praised Apple for creating the iPhone App Store, by which point Microsoft's own storefront ambitions had become central to its mobile strategy.
First-order effects
- Windows and Windows Mobile developers gain a prospective Microsoft-run storefront as a distribution channel, with curation and payment handled by the platform rather than per-developer websites.
- The announcement validates Apple's App Store model inside Microsoft itself — the company that dominated desktop software distribution via retail boxes now concedes the storefront is the new default.
Second-order effects
- Rivals without a storefront — Google on Android, handset makers, and carriers — face pressure to stand up their own app markets or cede the developer relationship and billing relationship to whoever owns the store.
- A Microsoft store creates a second gatekeeper competing for the same developers, forcing early decisions about revenue splits and approval rules that will shape pricing across mobile ecosystems.
Third-order effects
- If every OS ships with a mandatory-first storefront, software distribution shifts from an open web of downloads to platform-taxed channels — setting up the take-rate disputes and regulatory scrutiny that dominate app-store economics today.
- Control of distribution becomes a core competitive asset in its own right, meaning platform wars are fought less on OS features and more on who owns the checkout between developer and user.
The trend: Platform owners are consolidating software distribution into curated, taxed storefronts — a model Apple pioneered on the iPhone and which Microsoft's move here shows becoming table stakes for every major OS.