Microsoft is gearing up for the Windows 8 release next month, and India seems to be a crucial segment of this launch.
Microsoft, today kicked off an 18-hour long non-stop coding marathon with 3,500 developers at Bangalore, one of the largest such event ever held by the company in India. With close to 1.2 million developers in the country working on Microsoft platform, India is indeed an important region for the company.
The application fest is an opportunity for the developers to submit applications (apps) in over 20 categories ranging from food, finance, productivity, books, social, photo, music and video, and shopping.
“Developers are at the center of Microsoft’s success. And India is home to some of the world’s most talented developers. We are focused on enabling developers to succeed as they build the next generation of apps. I can’t wait to see some of these apps being built at the Windows Appfest. We are giving an opportunity to Indian application developers to make innovative applications that can be uploaded on to the Marketplace," said John Devaan, Microsoft corporate vice-president, Windows development.
The company also said, Microsoft platform has got a reach in all countries which will help application developers to make money in 70 currencies. Windows 8 platform is created to suit broadest of devices, has already has been downloaded 16 million times across of the world. According to Microsoft, the company will follow a standard revenue sharing pattern followed by the app stores and developers. An application developer will get a 70 per cent revenue for a paid application download while 30 per cent will go to the app store.
Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India said, “Windows 8 is ‘Good for India’. In India, Microsoft is making significant investments and working with 1.2 million developers, over 1000 Independent Software Vendors and more than 2000 System Integrators to empower them with the tools, technologies and training required to develop high end skills and compete in a global marketplace.”
Some of the companies have already built in their applications for the Windows 8 platforms. They include free apps like ICICI Direct- an application for stock market information, Flipkart's online music library, Flyte, which has a vast collection of over 2 million songs, and also the travel portal MakeMyTrip.