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Microsoft Shells Out For Strong Apps

Like a Web portal without content, mobile platforms can’t thrive without a diverse array of applications. With that in mind, Microsoft is offering developers various incentives -- including cash -- to tailor apps for its Windows Phone app store.

“Many developers are reluctant to funnel time and money into an app for what is still a small and unproved market,” writes The New York Times. “So Microsoft has come up with incentives, like plying developers with free phones and the promise of prime spots in its app store and in Windows Phone advertising.”

What’s more, the software giant is reportedly financing the development of Windows Phone versions of well-known apps -- “something that app makers estimate would otherwise cost them anywhere from $60,000 to $600,000, depending on the complexity of the app,” NYT writes.

More than anything else, the move highlights the dominant positions that Google and Apple currently command among app developers. Firmly established as mobile gatekeepers, neither company is known to pay developers to make apps. With the help of Nokia, however, Microsoft is currently trying to jumpstart what has until now been a toothless mobile strategy.  

Read the whole story at The New York Times »

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