Windows 8 to Have Its Own App Store, the Win Mac App Store Rival?

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Earlier today we told you that there’s a new Windows 8 pre-beta build in town, version 8064, which hasn’t been leaked to the public yet, and now we find out, straight from Microsoft’s own Windows 8 blog, some new details regarding the team behind the upcoming Microsoft OS:

We organize the work of Windows into “feature teams,” groups of developers who own a combination of architectural elements and scenarios across Windows. We have about 35 feature teams in the Windows 8 organization. Each feature team has anywhere from 25-40 developers, plus test and program management, all working together. Our teams are all focused on building a global product, and so some of our teams are located outside the US and are also delivering globally.

It seems that the company realized a virtual application store could be a good thing to consider for the future Windows 8 environment. We have no idea what this Mac App Store rival will be called right now, but it’s probably obvious from where Redmond got their inspiration.

In a blog post entitled “Introducing the Team” Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky revealed the many teams mentioned above are currently working on developing a worthy Windows 7 successor, and, since they’re listed in chronological order it wouldn’t take very long to notice there’s an “App Store” team. In fact, considering how it’s typed up there, “App Store”, Apple may very well have some issues with it:

• App Compatibility and Device Compatibility
• App Store
• Applications and Media Experience
• App Experience
• Core Experience Evolved
• Device Connectivity
• Devices & Networking Experience
• Ecosystem Fundamentals
• Engineer Desktop
• Engineering System
• Enterprise Networking
• Global Experience
• Graphics Platform
• Hardware Developer Experience
• Human Interaction Platform
• Hyper-V
• In Control of Your PC
• Kernel Platform
• Licensing and Deployment
• Media Platform
• Networking Core
• Performance
• Presentation and Composition
• Reliability, Security, and Privacy
• Runtime Experience
• Search, View, and Command
• Security & Identity
• Storage & Files Systems
• Sustained Engineering
• Telemetry
• User-Centered Experience
• Windows Online
• Windows Update
• Wireless and Networking services
• XAML

Of course Microsoft didn’t go into specific details about any of the teams mentioned and Sinofsky never shared actual information about this upcoming Windows App Store. There’s plenty of time to talk about the contents of the Windows App Store, and the Windows 8 apps that will be available in it at launch, but what’s interesting here is that Microsoft’s initiative, even if not original, may help certain software developers, Microsoft included, make more money off their apps.

A virtual software store ensures that developers will only have to charge for their apps, well, and for Microsoft’s commission since Redmond is certainly planning to make some cash in the process of such an app store, instead of having to deal with packaging and shipping actual boxes containing the software, app or game. End-users should also be happy to hear about this initiative as software pricing should drop, which could, in turn, decrease the number of pirated software copies out there.

Anyone specifically excited about the “App Store”? And what about that “Human Interaction Platform”? Did Microsoft also confirmed Kinect for Windows?