Apple iTunes Is Coming to the Windows Store -- Redmondmag.com

The Schwartz Report

Apple iTunes Is Coming to the Windows Store

As the list of major apps joining the Windows Store continues to grow, albeit incrementally, Microsoft scored another coup this week announcing that the Apple iTunes music and app stores will be available by year's end.

Microsoft has struggled to get big names into the Windows Store but a number have jumped on board including Facebook and Spotify. In addition to iTunes, Microsoft announced that SAP's Digital Boardroom and the popular Autodesk Stingray 3D gaming and real-time rendering engine were being added to the Windows Store. Stingray isn't the first Autodesk modern app to join the Windows Store. Autodesk Sketchbook was added last year and Microsoft reported it's seeing 35 percent sales growth each month for the app this calendar year so far.

The release last month of Windows 10 Creators Update, announced last fall, appears to have generated improved prospects for Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform (UWP), through it's far from having received critical mass. Microsoft is also bringing Office 365 to UWP. The cover story for this month's issue of Redmond magazine offers some analysis on the impetus for the latest Windows 10 release and the company's "mixed reality" tooling to motivate a growing number of developers to build UWP apps and make them available in the Windows Store.

In his monthly Redmond Windows Insider column, Ed Bott questioned whether there's enough incentive for the broad cross-section of software publishers and developers to dedicate resources to UWP. "It doesn't help that Microsoft has pivoted its mobile platform more often than the New England Patriots backfield," Bott writes. "Just ask a longtime Microsoft developer about Silverlight. And be prepared to duck."

Terry Myerson, Microsoft's executive VP for Windows and Devices, announced at Build this week a number of efforts to motivate developers. Among them are .NET Standard 2.0 for UWP and XAML Standard, slated for release later this year, which Myerson said will provide a more simplified and modernized code base. Myerson remains encouraged.

"There has never been a better time to bring your apps to the Windows Store," he wrote in his blog post, where he claimed monthly in-app purchases in the Windows Store have doubled. Myerson also noted that Microsoft will deliver complete UWP functionality to Visual Studio Mobile Center this fall, which will include automated build support and an extended number of Windows devices in its test cloud.

Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 05/12/2017 at 12:41 PM

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