Microsoft encurage its employees to develop Windows Phone apps during spare time
Microsoft reached 5000 apps available in the Windows Phone Marketplace in the end of December. More than 9000 apps are available today, a little over two months later. It is increasing, but not quick enough obviously. To further speed up the number of new quality apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace Microsoft are now doing something similar to what Google has done for its employees for years. Google offer their engineers 20-percent time to work on things they are really passionated about. Google employees use 20% of their time to work on things they like during regular work hours while getting the monthly paycheck. Google Suggest, AdSense and Orkut are results of this offering.
Microsoft isn't going the exact same route, but the employees are given free hands to create Windows Phone 7 apps during their spare time. The apps and intellectual property is owned by the developer while the revenue are share between Microsoft and the developer on the usual 70-30 percentage model.
Having created a nice app does not guarantee financial success so if the app does not sell well, the developer will not earn much either.
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