Selling a Windows Mobile application

Question

First off, I'm not really looking to start any kind of argument here. I have a WinMo smartphone and, not finding a lot of apps for it, have decided to focus on that as a platform for development. I know the touchscreens have a lot of "wow" compared to the smartphone, but it seems to me WinMo Standard is an underserved market.

Anyway, I'm preparing to deploy my first app, and am starting to wonder about the best method of deploying. Let me state now I have no delusions that anything I write will make me rich, but if I can sell a few applications for, say, a buck a piece, I won't complain.

My first inclination is Microsoft's Mobile Marketplace. If it's even quarter as successful as Apple's AppStore then it would probably be a good place to sell an application. The downside is the annual $99 fee and limit of five apps per year. (I don't have a lot of spare cash and I already have ideas for more than five.)

My second thought was to sell my apps on my own site and use some retail package like OSCommerce or Google Checkout, or even PayPal. Or, maybe there's another app store site worth looking into I don't know about.

So I'm looking for opinions for the best way to market and sell Windows Mobile applications. I'm marking this Community Wiki because I don't believe there's any one answer.

Answer 1

Well if you try selling it on your own site, you'll need a shopping cart and merchant account. Way more that $99. You'll also need some form of marketing so people can find it. Again, way more than $99.

Honestly, the Marketplace is the lowest cost, most searchable, best penetration mechanism you're going to find for selling your apps. I believe that and I don't even have any apps in the Marketplace.

Of course there are alternatives like PocketGear and Handango which are essentially the same (or pretty similar anyway) idea as Microsoft's Marketplace.Microsoft's may end up costing less (as a percentage of your sale) and if you can just add the cost of the app to your phone bill, it's way easier than having your customers have to use a PC and get out the credit card.

To see how the entire process of selling an app on the Marketplace, you might keep an eye on Project Resistance.