Helping You Monetize Your Developer Skills

The harder I try, the luckier I get

Go ahead and depend on the rabbit's foot for luck - if you will.

But remember it didn't work for the rabbit.

I have a silly analogy that reflects the way I think about “seizing the moment.” It starts like this. You are stuck in some town and can’t escape. But once and a while a train roars through town. That train isn’t necessarily destined for the “pot of gold” but at least you get to leave your town. Now, if you are lazily sitting in a lawn chair all day, forget about the ability to grab that passing train and get the heck out of town, much less find something that could make a little more prosperous. Not me, I’d be running along that train track once in a while, even if I am deluding myself. I may not get the next train, but the one after – that one is not getting away.

Let’s face it – every time we sit down at the keyboard and try to create something, we are betting that it will make users happy, the more users the merrier the developer. This is especially true if that developer is selling their app on some store or marketplace.

Only a fool could disagree with the old adage, “the harder I try, the luckier I get.” The early bird does get the worm in many, many situations. From my point of view there is a huge opportunity for developers to monetize their skills.

I think that Windows 8 offers and unprecedented opportunity to monetize your developer skills. Combining the broad reach of Windows, a new developer platform, best-in-class developer tools, a reimagined user experience, support for new chipsets, and a built-in Store with industry-leading business terms—Windows 8 is the largest developer opportunity, ever.

So by day I blog, conceive/create/deliver live presentations, and write some code. But at night I write Windows 8 Metro Applications.

Regardless of whether I work for Microsoft, there are reasons for developers to consider writing applications for the Windows Store.

Windows Store

Imagine a marketplace for your application with a global reach of 200+ markets, 100+ languages, even distribution to enterprise customers. A generous revenue sharing model is in place. Imagine that you keep 70-80% of the revenue share from your application.

There is more than 1.25 billion Windows users globally. The market potential for your selling your application is enormous. Clearly, the market for Windows-based applications far outnumbers anything else.

Metro Styled Applications

I am excited that there is major innovation at the UI level. Metro represents a departure from the more than 20 years with very little evolution across all OS’s. That whole icon/grid layout has gotten stale, the simplistic tile interface is ready for upgrading. To me Metro has a home entertainment feel to it.

Metro styled applications are standardized. They need to comply with some standards that are there to ensure an optimal user experience. Remember, we are talking about touch-enabled interaction across a spectrum of device types.

You can learn about some requirements for building Metro styled apps here. There is also an App Certification Kit —as part of the SDK that can help.

I can help

Reach out to me – Bruno Terkaly, bterkaly@microsoft.com. I can help you get your application certified and into the Windows Store.

Some amazing help is available from Microsoft
I am talking about the Application Accelerator Labs
Get one-on-one sessions with Microsoft engineers
They will review your application for:
- Performance
- Adherence to the Metro Design Principles
This process could result in a token
This token gets your app into the Windows Store

If you reside in the Silicon Valley Area, you schedule some in person time to get your application.

Schedule time with the Silicon Valley Evangelist (Bruno Terkaly, Doris Chen, Matt Harrington)

This is an “Early Bird Special.” Like anything else, if you get there first the reward can be that much greater.

This is a limited opportunity for developers to get their application into the Windows 8 store early.

Metro style app can leverage a variety of skills you already know (JavaScript, HTML5, CSS, XAML, C#, VB, or C++ ). As for myself, I would re-learn assembler if I knew there would be economic opportunity.

Here are some helpful facts

As I read about all the various aspects of hosting my application in the Windows Store, these things stood out to me.

Best App Types	Entertainment apps are the most popular, followed by Books and References, and Games.
The Windows Store Ensures Visibility	Strong support for search, category browsing, ranking lists, editorial content. The Windows Store features latest, most popular, and fast rising apps.
Enterprise Support	Don’t limit yourself to consumer apps. Perhaps you have an idea for an Enterprise application. Luckily, the Windows Store will have rich support for deployment and management scenarios. Compliance and security is built in. There is support for direct control over the deployment of Metro style apps.
Back and forth, home to work and back	IT administrators can support scenarios where applications and data can be made available to devices that move between work and home, even if these apps are just for internal use.
How you make money	Your applications can be time-based and feature-based trials, paid apps, including in-app purchases. In-app purchases can help you customize the transaction flow with the customer. Sales analytics can also help you increase your reach.
Many choose to offer free applications + an ad model	I personally think it makes the most sense to get your application out there as a trial. We have learned from the Windows Phone marketplace that trial versions get 70 times more downloads than paid versions. 10% of those convert to the paid version, typically within a few hours.

Future Posts

This marks the first post in a series of posts where I discuss the marriage between Windows 8 and Azure. The need to consume cloud data and services has never been greater. The world is heading toward a variety of devices and staying connected and synchronized is getting more and more important every day.