Microsoft Opens Its Windows Store Up To Third-party App Stores (theverge.com) 27
Microsoft is opening up its own app store in Windows even further today, inviting third-party app stores to integrate into the Microsoft Store. It's a significant change that will see both Amazon and Epic Games Store discoverable in the Microsoft Store in the coming months. From a report: "Just like any other app, third-party storefront apps will have a product detail page -- which can be found via search or by browsing -- so that users can easily find and install it with the same confidence as any other app in the Microsoft Store on Windows," explains Giorgio Sardo, general manager of the Microsoft Store. "Today, we are sharing that Amazon and Epic Games will bring their storefront apps to the Microsoft Store over the next few months, and we look forward to welcoming other stores as well in the future." The news comes months after Microsoft announced some major changes to the Microsoft Store. Not only is the store being overhauled for Windows 11 and eventually Windows 10, but Microsoft will also let developers keep 100 percent of the revenue from apps if they use alternative payment platforms. The only exception is that this doesn't apply to games.
Bing 2? (Score:3, Funny)
So now we can ignore a wider range of products
Re:Bing 2 [= FREEDOM]? (Score:2)
Weak joke, but better than an AC brain fart. I don't mind if you get your Funny mod, though I didn't laugh at the attempted joke. I don't even laugh at Bing, though I can't recall the last time I used it.
But freedom involves choice and choice involves work, and it seems like too many people don't want to be bothered these days. They just want to plug into their favorite input channel, usually Apple or the google or Amazon, and just "freely" accept whatever the "beneficent" corporate cancer offers to maximiz
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You are asking early adopters to accept the problems of low choice in order to give Amazon/Google/Apple competition. I'm not giving a value judgement to that choice, but merely pointing out the pioneers will take arrows in the back.
And I'm not sure MS is the safest choice to give power, being they have a history of abusing market share. Perhaps 4 competing jerks is better than 3 competing jerks?
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What?
I cannot write THAT badly. Well, maybe.
I'm taking a really wild guess here, but are you trying to agree with the MBA BS about only #1 or #2? If so, then my response is that there's nothing wrong with earning an honest profit. It's mostly the vulture capitalists who make that form of honesty fatal, but I think an honest profit can be small and even sustainable without asking for your company to be destroyed.
Or maybe you're mumbling about the locus of optimal choice? If so, then I think The Paradox of C
Centralized updates and management (Score:3)
With Microsoft offering 0% fees for sales outside the store and more complete Win32 program support this should make the store incredibly valuable.
I would much rather have a centralized package management and update system tied to my user account than having to sign in to 9 different downloaders and updaters.
Autodesk has their own installer/updater, Apple has their own installer/updater, Adobe has their own installer/updater, etc.
When I want to setup a new computer I have to go find VSCode, I have to find N
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Funny, I remember when Apple NOT doing this was bad bad bad.
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People use Windows Store? (Score:2)
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You have to, I wanted a windows build of Okular pdf viewer. You can only get it through the store https://okular.kde.org/downloa... [kde.org] unless you want buggy nightly builds. I'm not a software dev.
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In the case of KDE it used to be a behemoth to install on Windows - simply because the package manager we take for granted on Linux systems isn't there.
You're not just downloading Okular, you're installing a heap of libraries for Qt and KDE.
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Exactly, this is a big nothingburger. If they opened up the Xbox marketplace to third party app stores, then we'd actually have news.
The only times
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It sucks to now have to go to the old one from 1995 and now the new add/remove program for Windows Store applications.
Use 1995 methods... deal with 1995 hassles.
For one thing 99.9% of all programs should be in the new Settings panel aka "Apps and Features" regardless of how it was installed.
For another, you can now right click on any icon and click "Uninstall" to get taken to whatever add/remove programs location is appropriate. Again regardless of how it was installed.
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It has its limited place.
Alt Headline: Microsoft Taxes 3rd Party Appstores (Score:1)
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Games can't be hosted directly on Windows Store and charge for in-app purchases.
But for Epic, you could just download an exe installer for their Epic storefront. So if MS were never going to get a cut of that revenue, they've conceded that they may as well allow you to host their app store app.
And regarding Android, Microsoft are trying to avoid losing market share to Chromebooks here - having a catalogue of Android available is more important than trying to monetize said apps, so they're prepared to cede
Hail Mary! (Score:2)
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Operating systems are not store fronts.
So apt-get should be stripped out of debian?
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Of course not. If Windows came with a good package manager for FOSS, that would be something to cheer.
It wouldn't be a good enough reason to ever use Windows, but it would be a much bigger step in the right direction than anything Microsoft has ever done.
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Sure they are, at least the 'Home' edition.
Microsoft Surface is just chasing the trend that operating systems for iPad and Chromebook set before it.
In any case, telemetry and the store are things that sys admins can disable in Group Policy, no?