Microsoft Details App Submission for the Windows Store

When made available for the public later this month, Windows 8 Consumer Preview will offer access to the Windows Store that will accompany the next-generation platform from Microsoft.

App developers have already been provided with the necessary tools to start building applications for the Windows 8 platform, and were also pointed at the Windows Store for submitting their software to be released on the platform.

Today, Microsoft is offering some additional info on what the submission of applications to the portal is all about. Moreover, the company details a bit more on what the creation of apps implies, along with the listing of apps in the Store, and what tools devs have for tracking the progress of their software.

“We approached the submission process by looking at developers as our partners, sharing a common goal of connecting people to as many great apps as possible,” Jonathan Garrigues, a program manager on the Developer Experience team, explains.

The submission process is broke down into two phases, Microsoft explains. At first, the dev is learning, submitting, and reviewing data, but, as soon as the app is submitted, he/she only has to track the progress of the app.

In order to increase confidence in the second phase of the process, Microsoft is encouraging developers to visit the Store developer portal before they start coding. Thus, they can even reserve the name of their application before submitting it, which guarantees that the name will be unique.

“One advantage of allowing developers to reserve app names in advance is that it brings them into the developer portal site earlier in the process, and exposes them to some of the other options and requirements that they’ll need to keep in mind as they code,” Garrigues explains.

At first, only the name section for the application is enabled. However, devs will be able to access additional info on the software after the submission, including market availability, monetization options, and supported services.

Apps in the Store will have unique names so that users will be able to find them more easily. This means that there are app-specific and developer-specific details included for each app.

“To streamline the experience and prevent you from having to enter the same data multiple times, we pull as much as we can directly from your app packages,” Garrigues notes, adding that devs will also be able to track the certification status of their applications in the Store.