Boston, MA 08/11/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Since Satya Nadella took over Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) as CEO from Steve Balmer, his only mantra is “cloud first, mobile first”. Though his strategies of cloud computing are taking shape, it is the highly competitive mobile market which is eluding. It is the downloadable apps that are critical to Microsoft’s business in mobile market where it has to compete with well established competitors like iOS and Android. Microsoft recently released couple of updates to make apps development easy for the developers. One update is Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2013 that provides a complete set of tools for mobile desktop and web development. Other update addresses shortage of windows apps that Microsoft offers its customers. By making it easier to develop and test apps on windows platform, Microsoft hopes that the developers will be enabled to solve the shortage of windows apps on smartphones. Microsoft also released a tool called Multi-Device Hybrid Apps CT 2.0 that would help developers to program apps and test on any of the big three platforms namely iOS, Android and Windows.
Apps are the soul to any smartphone and thus influence the customer’s preference to buy a smartphone. The greater the number of apps available on a platform the greater are chances that customer would buy a smartphone supporting those apps. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) achieved the 200K apps milestone by December 2013 and 300K milestone by June 2014. With variety of apps now available on Windows phone and the increased rate of growth in apps on windows platform, the company predicts higher growth of sales. It is also seen that more developers are shifting to programming on windows platform, thus pushing the growth in sales for windows based smartphones.
A Store At Fifth Avenue, New York
Microsoft is planning to open a store in New York on Fifth Avenue very near to the Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) iconic glass cube store. Microsoft has more than 100 stores operating in the U.S and Puerto Rico and has plans to locate 13 more stores in these regions. The planned store at Fifth Avenue New York would be located at place vacated by Italian luxury fashion house Fendi in 2013. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is said to be negotiating for this spot that might cost as much as $30 million of rent per year. This facility, one of its kinds, is expected to house its products such as Microsoft Surface, Xbox and number of other Windows devices while generating customer interest in Windows operating system. Microsoft expects the store to compete with Apple’s counterpart at the Fifth Avenue New York while Apple downplays its effect.
Reaching Out To European Markets
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced that by end of October 2014 some European countries will be able to use the premium live TV features of Xbox one, an alternative to TV content provided by a Cable or Satellite set up box. At present, the customers of Xbox One in the U.S and Canada have this facility available to them. The European countries that will avail from Xbox TV services include UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The service would cost the customers in United Kingdom 24.99 Pounds a month and for the ones in other European countries the monthly fee is put at 29.99 Euros.
