Windows 8 reaches 100,000 apps milestone in just over seven months
While Microsoft didn't quite hit 100,000 in time for its Build developers conference last week, the software giant is announcing its latest milestone for Windows 8 today. The Windows Store has just passed the 100,000 mark …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Windows Store's climb has been fast by Microsoft standards: it passed 20,000 apps within two weeks of the November 2012 launch, with nearly all titles free at that stage (7,000 added in a fortnight), so today's 100,000 figure means roughly fivefold growth in about seven months. The number also carries history for Microsoft — the company's phone-side Marketplace took from 2011's early milestones (10,000 apps on Windows Phone 7) until June 2012 to reach its own 100,000, so the tablet/desktop store has matched that mark in a fraction of the time.
The pickup was broad: WMPoweruser, CNET, Engadget, Business Insider, WinBeta, Windows Phone Central, Neowin and Phone Arena all ran the same announcement on or about July 1, reflecting how closely the two ecosystems' app counts are being tracked against each other. It lands amid a wider Microsoft moment — Windows 8 crossed Vista's market share in the first half of 2013, and reports around the same date have Steve Ballmer planning a corporate restructure, giving this milestone extra weight as evidence for whatever 'devices and services' story emerges.
First-order effects
- Microsoft gains the headline number it missed for last week's Build conference, letting it counter developer objections that Windows 8 lacks a viable catalog — though raw counts say nothing about quality or revenue, which is where skeptics will press.
Second-order effects
- With the desktop/tablet store now matching the 100,000-app scale Windows Phone reached in June 2012, pressure grows toward a converged catalog and toolchain across both platforms, and developers weighing Windows Phone investment get one fewer reason to treat the phone side as a separate, thinner market.
Third-order effects
- If Microsoft sustains this fill rate while pushing Windows 8 adoption past Vista's share, app-count milestones start losing their signaling power — competition among the big three mobile-style stores shifts from catalog size to monetization and discovery, forcing Microsoft to prove the Store earns developers money rather than merely hosts them.
The trend: Microsoft is racing to close the app-catalog gap that has dogged its platforms since Windows Phone's slow 2011–2012 buildout, using the desktop install base to compress into months what the phone store needed years to reach.