Microsoft Claims Apple and Google “Inflate” Mobile Application Numbers
Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Slowly Gaining Ground on Competitors
The competition in the mobile application industry has been growing intense in the past few years as major corporations such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft battle for the top ranking in the mobile application arena. A few years ago, Apple and their iPhone was the clear cut leader in mobile applications and Smartphones, but as we progress into the future, Apple has been seeing fierce competition come it way from Google and their Android Smartphone’s as well as Microsoft and their Windows Phone 7 Smartphone. The competition is growing so intense that Microsoft recently claimed that Apple and Google “inflate” their mobile app numbers to make them seem more successful then they truly are.
Microsoft has made tremendous strides in establishing Windows Phone 7 as a legitimate alternative to the iPhone and Android Smartphone’s and with it’s newly found success, they are starting to accuse Apple and Google of inflating their mobile application download numbers and also other questionable items in their tallies. One example where Microsoft accuses these companies of inflating their mobile application download numbers is by questioning the definition of a mobile app. Is a wallpaper that one downloads from an app store (such as Apple’s iTunes Mobile Application marketplace or Google’s Droid Mobile App Marketplace) considered a mobile application? Or is it just a simple image which mobile application marketers put into a category for mobile application wallpapers to add to their list of mobile apps which are available in a specific marketplace?
Mircosoft’s Windows Phone director Brandon Watson stated that there are “now 11,500 mobile applications available for Windows Phone 7. The number pales in comparison to the 350,000 mobile apps claimed by Apple, and even Google’s comparatively new Android mobile OS counts about 30,000.” As appealing as those mobile application statistics may look, Watson said those numbers are misleading for a number of reasons.
One reason why Watson believes those numbers are misleading is because he claims that Microsoft does not practice the counting of “lite” mobile apps. He also claims that Microsoft does not double or triple count mobile applications which are submitted in multiple languages. Watson also showed other statistics which showed Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 progress since its release. He claimed that development tools for the platform have been downloaded 1.5 million times and that there were 36,000 registered mobile application developers with 1,200 new mobile application developer registrations per week.
Microsoft is clearly taking steps forward into becoming one of the major players in the mobile application industry as well as the Smartphone world. Many mobile application developers and mobile application “experts” claim that Microsoft will never catch up to the iPhone or Android but they will certainly join the group and become the “Big 3” (replacing RIM’s Blackberry) with Apple and Google in terms of Smartphones and mobile applications. The future looks bright for Microsoft and the mobile application industry and even with fierce competition, there will be plenty of room for the “Big 3” to all succeed and generate profits at the end of the year.