Marketplace opened for customers today in 13 new markets—a milestone my colleague Mazhar talks about on our consumer blog.
As I’ve written, the news is just another reminder that if you haven’t started cross-submitting your apps for publishing (here’s how), now’s the time so phone owners in these new markets can start downloading them.
Before signing off, I wanted to quickly address a question I often get: Why isn’t the developer App Hub expanding at the same pace as the consumer Marketplace? It’s a great question with a complicated answer. Simply put, it takes a lot of legal and engineering work to bring App Hub to new markets. We know you want to see App Hub expand, and we’re working hard to do that while guaranteeing a good experience for you. Setting up registration and payment infrastructure, complying with local laws and regulations, and doing all the other work necessary to ensure you have the tools you need to publish free and paid apps—and get compensated properly—takes time to put into place.
That’s one reason why we created our global publisher program, which lets you publish apps in markets not yet supported by App Hub.