I got caught up in all the Windows Phone 7 excitement at MIX 2010 and tonight I tried to sign up!
When I first looked into this around the time of the MWC conference, it cost $99US to sign up. Interesting, today it's $120US. Things that make you go hhhhhmmmmm.........
Anyways, the deal is, by signing up on the Microsoft Marketplace site, you can sell/give/distribute/deploy your mobile applications! BEAUTIFUL! And especially since this is the only (legal) way to get your apps onto people's devices, that's a good thing! So let's do this together, shall we?
First, goto the Marketplace and then click on the Register button. Oh, wait, before you do that, you have to have your credit card ready to be able to pay for this. NO! I'm NOT going to give you mine! HAHA LOL
After you go through the wizard like interface, make sure you enter the correct information "as exactly entered on the credit card." If you do that you'll get....hhhhhmmmmm something......wait a second.....hhmmmm this doesn't seem right.
Ok, hold on, let me wait an hour or so and try again. Maybe there's too many people just as excited about signing up as I am? hhhhmm Ok, I'm back, let's try this again. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH There we go! SUCCESS! (don't bother looking for anything secret! there's nothing there on that screen LOL)
The only minor speed bump is, once you repy to the emails, etc and do that other confirming you say you are who you say you are stuff, you STILL can't deploy your WP7 application.
I know, I know, I'm jumping the gun a bit! Ya, ya, but can you blame a guy for trying? Why ELSE would Microsoft have raised the price from $99 to $120 in just over a month? Ya, I'm wondering that too!
Another cool feature Charlie Kindel talked about is the Marketplace's Try button/feature and I think it's a VERY cool idea. Ya, ya, I know, Android's got it, had it, whatever, this is the first time we've seen it in the MS world. And apparently it's ONE, read it, ONE API call (according to Charlie's presentation today)
public bool IsTrial() <--- how simple is that?
"Friction Free" is the catch phrase Charlie used to describe MS' WP7 philosophy. I do hope that's what the $20 extra buys cause it'll be well worth it at that price, a bargain really!
So now that I'm NOT able to sell my WP7 application on the Microsoft Marketplace (well, just not quite yet! LOL) I AM however ready TO do it once things get cranking on Microosft's side! Now that you have a bit of idea what to expect when you try to sign up on the Marketplace, it's time to grab a coffee and get coding!