14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is still betting big on the Windows Store, so its struggle to convince developers to embrace the platform continues in both the United States and overseas.
Arik Cohen, principal lead program manager on the Windows Store team, said during the BUILD developer conference in San Francisco that Microsoft is trying to encourage developers to roll out trial versions of their apps, as this is basically the easiest way to boost the overall number of downloads.
"Trials matter. We added trial support for Windows 8 apps. An app that has trials, compared to an app that doesn’t have trials, has 12 times the downloads,” Cohen was quoted as saying by PC Pro.
The Windows Store is playing a key role for Microsoft’s long-term vision, as the company is hoping to boost the number of apps available for download and thus provide users with a wide variety of alternatives for traditional desktop software solutions.
The company announced earlier today that its Windows Store had finally reached the 100,000 app milestone, so consumers could find helpful Metro tools for most, if not all, tasks they wanted to perform on Windows 8 or Windows RT.
At the same time, the software giant also unveiled that more companies would soon embrace Windows 8 and develop Metro apps capable of running on the new Windows 8.1 platform.
Facebook, for example, is one of the big names that finally decided to create its own Windows 8 app that would basically allow users to connect to their profiles and post messages without even leaving the Metro UI.
In addition, Foursquare, OpenTablet, RockmeIt, and Rhapsody will also land in the Windows Store in the coming weeks, but no specifics on the launch date have been provided. More information, however, is expected to be provided in the near future.