Microsoft has formally opened Windows Marketplace for Mobile to developers today. While the actual storefront won’t debut till the company releases Windows Mobile 6.5, the company is sweetening the pot a little to offer potential developers a little enticement, with a contest called the Race To Market Challenge.
Under the rules, all apps that get accepted in the marketplace before December 31 will be eligible to win one of four categories, namely the most downloaded freeware, most successful money-maker, most useful and most playful. The latter criteria will be determined by a panel of judges.
Each of the winning developers will get one Microsoft Surface computer each, which isn’t really all that inviting, when you consider what Google offered when they rolled out their own version of an app challenge for Android. If I recall correctly, they gave a total of $5 million, divided among 70 winning developers.
With such modest prizes, it should be fair to assume larger development houses aren’t exactly falling over their heads trying to get in on the Windows Marketplace action. Still, with a good deal of handsets running the platform (especially outside the US), it offers another potentially lucrative place for developers to peddle their wares.
According to Microsoft, submission process for their app downloads platform involves a ten-day window, with status updates easily available from within a reporting dashboard. The Race To Market Challenge is available to participants in any of the following 29 countries, namely Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong SAR, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and the United States.
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