Microsoft just opened the doors of its Windows Phone 7 Market to developers. App submission was previously by invitation only but from now on any developer willing to cough up the $99 a year App Hub fee will be able to submit apps to the market. App Hub members will also be able to submit X-Box Live games without paying an additional fee.
Apple’s developer program for iOS costs $99 a year for a standard licence and $299 a year for an enterprise license. The Android App Market has a $25 one time fee.
According to Microsoft’s announcement, it will take three to five business days for an app to be certified and published. Microsoft has made its certification requirements available here.
App Hub members will also be given a free trial to PreEmptive‘s mobile analytics service. According to PreEmptive’s Windows Phone 7 site developers will have access to the following information:
- Number of application sessions
- Number of unique users
- Feature usage counts and duration
- General system and stability statistics
As we reported earlier today, the advertising firm Millennial Media has reported strong growth for the Windows 7 platform. That’s quite impressive considering how new the platform is and most developers haven’t been able to submit apps to the market yet.
