SkyMarket is coming

Seconds after Google announced its iPhone-like app store for Android, Microsoft began preparing a marketplace for applications that run on Windows Mobile 7. It is slated to launch in 2009.

Microsoft's plans were uncovered through a want ad it posted on ComputerJobs.com, which has been removed. The posting was for a Senior Product Manager, who would help drive cross group collaboration this fall for the app market's 2009 launch.

But Microsoft apparently hasn't done much besides pick a name - SkyMarket - to solidify its vision for the product, observes AppleInsider. The posting called for someone who could help "define" the offering, pricing, business model, as well as policies that would attract developers that wish to distribute and monetize Windows Mobile applications.

The true challenge lies, not in developer outreach, but in building the product itself, writes Silicon Alley Insider. A marketplace that matches the intuitiveness of iTunes, but is also complex enough to handle the sheer variety of Windows Mobile devices, may prove a major challenge.

It will also be difficult to accommodate different types of consumers, developers, carriers, and individual features: touchscreens, QWERTY keyboards, Bluetooth, GPS. In other words, not all apps are going to work on all phones. (This is a problem Apple did not have to consider for its App Store, which serves only one platform: that of the iPhone and the iPod touch.)

Microsoft's plan to monetize its mobile software will also turn Handango, its partner for mobile software, into a competitor. Handango's cut from developers' revenue is between 40 and 70 percent.

Mobile platform developers, such as Microsoft, Apple and Google, are not the only victims of the app craze. T-Mobile recently decided to open apps to outside developers across units, including Android, Sidekick and Windows Mobile. Its cut of the revenue will be based on bandwidth; one developer called the baseline "very generous," reports mocoNews.