Commentary

Marin Perez
 

Microsoft Gives App Store Guidelines

With Microsoft coming closer to launching its own mobile application store, you may be wondering how strict it will be vetting apps. The company released a few guidelines for what will be allowed in its store, and some of them may surprise you.

With Microsoft coming closer to launching its own mobile application store, you may be wondering how strict it will be vetting apps. The company released a few guidelines for what will be allowed in its store, and some of them may surprise you.Apple normally gets the heat for its app approval process because they've made some strange choices about what it will sell in the App Store. Microsoft outlined what type of apps are prohibited for its upcoming Windows Marketplace for Mobile, and most are reasonable except for how it handles VoIP.

1. Applications that are or distribute alternate marketplaces for content types (applications, games, themes etc.) that are sold or otherwise distributed through Windows® Marketplace for Mobile.

More Mobility Insights

White Papers

More >>

Reports

More >>

Webcasts

More >>

2. Applications that link to, incent users to download, or otherwise promote alternate marketplaces for content types that are sold or otherwise distributed through Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

3. Applications that promote or link users to a Web site, or contain functionality within the application itself, which encourages or requires the user to purchase or pay to upgrade the application outside of Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

4. Applications that enable VoIP (Voice over IP) services over a mobile operator network.

5. Applications that sell, link to, or otherwise promote mobile voice plans.

6. Applications that display advertising that does not meet the Microsoft Advertising Creative Acceptance Policy Guide http://advertising.microsoft.com/creative-specs.

7. Applications that replace, remove or modify the default dialer, SMS, or MMS interface.

8. Applications that change the default browser, search client, or media player on the device.

9. Applications with an OTA (over the air) download >10 MB.

10. Applications that run code outside Microsoft runtimes (native, managed, and widgets)

11. Applications that publish a user's location information to any other person without first having received the user's express permission (opt-in) to do so, and that do not provide the user a means of opting out of having their location information published.

12. Applications that publish a user's data from their mobile device to any other person without first having received the user's express permission (opt-in) to do so, and that do not provide the user a means of opting out of having their data published. A "user's data" includes, without limit, contacts, photos, SMS or other text communication, browsing history, location information, and other data either stored on the mobile device or stored in the "cloud" but accessible from the mobile device

Most of these aren't too surprising, but it's interesting that they're not going to allow VoIP over carrier networks because Skype already works over 3G on Windows Mobile phones. I suppose it was one of the concessions Microsoft had to make in order to have carrier billing, and it's the right move to make from that perspective. But I think all these artificial limitations are eventually going to hurt the carriers, and I think there will be tremendous opportunity for the first mobile operator that gives more freedom to its unlimited data users. The unavoidable future carriers have to realize is that their growth will be high-volume, low-price mobile data access. This doesn't mean they have to cede all control and be a dumb pipe, but they should open up their networks more to become clever pipes.


Related Reading




Currently we allow the following HTML tags in comments:

Single tags

These tags can be used alone and don't need an ending tag.

<br> Defines a single line break

<hr> Defines a horizontal line

Matching tags

These require an ending tag - e.g. <i>italic text</i>

<a> Defines an anchor

<b> Defines bold text

<big> Defines big text

<blockquote> Defines a long quotation

<caption> Defines a table caption

<cite> Defines a citation

<code> Defines computer code text

<em> Defines emphasized text

<fieldset> Defines a border around elements in a form

<h1> This is heading 1

<h2> This is heading 2

<h3> This is heading 3

<h4> This is heading 4

<h5> This is heading 5

<h6> This is heading 6

<i> Defines italic text

<p> Defines a paragraph

<pre> Defines preformatted text

<q> Defines a short quotation

<samp> Defines sample computer code text

<small> Defines small text

<span> Defines a section in a document

<s> Defines strikethrough text

<strike> Defines strikethrough text

<strong> Defines strong text

<sub> Defines subscripted text

<sup> Defines superscripted text

<u> Defines underlined text

InformationWeek encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, InformationWeek moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing/SPAM. InformationWeek further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.
T-Shirt Giveaway T-Shirt Giveaway: Each week we're selecting one great comment from our readers. The author of the comment will receive an InformaitonWeek Community t-shirt. So get posting!
Subscribe to RSS

Resource Links