It seems that everyone is talking app stores these days.  Apple started the trend and is doing a very good job selling applications through their App Store.  It probably helps that users cannot install applications in any other way unless they risk jailbreaking their precious iPhones.

Microsoft recently announced their own Marketplace that will be included with every device running Windows Mobile 6.5 on.  Of course developers will probably still be able to distribute their applications through other means, whether that be sites like Handango and MobiHand or through their own means.  You would think that would mean that Microsoft would make it easy for developers to get their applications into the Marketplace, right?

Well…it is Microsoft after all…

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The experience of searching for and finding the SDK, and a beginners guide couldn’t be easier.  A google search provided immediate results for the 6.1 SDK refresh, and a search of a well known community (MSDN) provided plenty of information to get started writing apps using the .net development platform.  Microsoft Windows is still one of the most widely used operating systems, making it an easily accessible native platform.

WineHQ has a write-up on installing Visual Studio .NET 2005 Express natively in Linux, but is mostly rated as garbage.  I suggest using the same technique here as installing the Apple SDK – grab a copy of windows and install it in a VM session.  Running a Mac you could easily run this using Parallels or VMware Fusion.

I know we’ve talked a lot about the iPhone this opening week.  There’s been a lot of excitement over the 3.0 updating coming soon to a phone near you.  Windows Mobile fans out there have a reason to celebrate too.  If version 7 of the mobile OS is shaping up anything like the desktop OS or the server 2008 OS, Microsoft has a bright future.  Some screenshots of the new UI have been posted on several sites, and it looks like Microsoft has taken a page from Apple’s book.  Regardless of the assimilation, lets face it, Microsoft still runs a majority of business services out there from Exchange to Sharepoint, and as a business phone with the direct integration into these services, that gives M$ the advantage in that arena.