Microsoft talks Windows Store features, Metro app sandboxing for Windows 8 developers
In a post today on Microsoft's Building Windows 8 blog, program manager John Hanzen took a deep dive on two topics that are set to separate the platform's Metro style apps apart from every Windows app before them: installation and permissions.
Context & Ripple Effects
When Microsoft first confirmed an app store for Windows 8 back in August 2011, the mechanics were left vague; program manager John Hanzen's Building Windows 8 post fills that in, framing sandboxed installation and explicit permissions as what will separate Metro style apps from 'every Windows app before them.' The story traveled quickly beyond Redmond — MSDN Blogs, Tim Anderson's ITWriting, SlashGear and Neowin all picked up the same detail dump within a day.
The timing matters against two threads from mid-May 2012: Microsoft officials privately complaining that PC makers clutter desktops with third-party ad icons and utilities, and Forrester placing Microsoft in the 'everyone else' tier behind Apple and Google as underlying technology providers for mobile app developers. A curated, permission-gated Store is Microsoft's answer to both — cleaner installs for users and a governance model developers already know from mobile.
First-order effects
- Metro style app developers building for Windows 8 must now design to sandbox constraints and runtime permission prompts rather than the unrestricted Win32 install model, with the Building Windows 8 blog as their specification of record.
- Consumers installing through the Windows Store get a path that bypasses the bundled-toolbar-and-ad-icon installers Microsoft has publicly blamed on OEM clutter, directly undercutting the junkware channel PC makers rely on.
Second-order effects
- PC manufacturers lose part of the economic logic of pre-loading third-party utilities and trialware if users default to Store installs for new apps, pressuring the OEM software bundle business.
- Developers face a fork: adopt Microsoft's mobile-style curation and revenue model for Metro, or stay on classic desktop distribution where Forrester says Apple and Google already hold the developer mindshare Microsoft is trying to claw back.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Windows splits into two governed tiers — a curated sandboxed Store platform and legacy unrestricted desktop — converging Windows on the app-store economics Apple and Google normalized, and setting the terms on which future disputes over curation, permissions and commerce play out.
The trend: Desktop operating systems are absorbing mobile-style app governance — sandboxing, permissions, and store curation — as Microsoft repositions Windows 8 against Apple and Google's developer ecosystems.