WP7 Feb Dev Payouts and Lack of Analytics Is NOT NEWS
One thing that irks me is when something that’s been known for months reemerges as ‘news’ and travels throughout the blogosphere likes it’s a new revelation. It’s not that it’s necessarily intentional, but in the end, when old news is circulated as new news it takes on a life of its own. So the story about Microsoft not paying out for Marketplace apps until February of 2011 is late breaking news about how bad MS is treating devs. And on top of that they’re not giving them any sense as to what their sales are like. That’s interesting…or was interesting when it was revealed. Flashback to October 4 and almost every blog reported on the timeline of app submission and timing that Todd Brix of Microsoft announced on the Windows Phone Developers Blog. Let’s just quote this thing:
Shortly after new Windows Phones become broadly available, Marketplace will begin providing developers with individual insights on their app’s performance within Marketplace. The reporting will soon become more automated and self service. We’re also still working toward a beta distribution solution to allow developers to privately distribute their apps for testing through Marketplace. This solution will not be in place for the launch of Windows Phone 7, but it is a feature on our roadmap. And perhaps most importantly, developers can expect the first payout of sales to date to take place in February.
OK so it was always clear that analytics would not be there at launch and the first payment would be in February. Let’s see how we reported it here. Yes, we discussed the February first payout date. But wait, there’s more. Microsoft has provided analytics tools to developers for free. This is another blog post this time from Brandon Watson but also on the Windows Phone Developers Blog. As he notes “We had already noted that we would not have reporting available at launch for developers, so we felt it was important to ensure that developers could have a view into the uptake of their applications.To solve this problem, we have partnered with PreEmptive Solutions to provide their Dotfuscator application…This will allow developers to instrument their code, provide customer insight into their application usage, and gain access to app analytics via the Runtime Intelligence web service.”
So for anyone that reported this as news, here’s your chance to recant it and correct the record. No one was blindsided. This was open from the start to developers, so settle down. if you want to take cheap shots at Windows Phone pick another target…
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how bout them ringtone app packs on android market place? Those are good heap shots. oh wait…sorry….thats got nothing to do with nothing.
It made zero sense even without this outstanding reporting. Phone Apps weren’t released for the most part until November for US centric apps and the devs was complaining that they hadn’t received anything. Not even 30 full days had passed and it was certainly a head scratcher to read that devs were thinking about leaving the platform in droves due to this.
The funniest thing was seeing this reported at AppleInsider as if they were really the best source to listen to on the topic.
I guess some of these other sites have never dealt with a large corporate entity. Payment in 90 days (Nov to Feb) is pretty reasonable, especially in today’s World of “hang on to it as long as you can”. Devs should be happy that they are not dealing with a government agency or they would need to tack on at least another 90. Once the checks start rolling out in February everything will flow smoothly month to month, and most likely increasing each month. That’s something to look forward to if you are a dev,