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There are a lot of pundits and techbloggers out there who have assumed the failure of the new Windows Marketplace to be a foregone conclusion. After all, how could it possibly hope to be noticed let alone succeed against the supposedly unstoppable perfection of Apple’s AppStore? Most of the people who supposedly know about these things are already assuming that the Marketplace’s only redeeming feature is providing another punchline for Apple’s I’m a Mac ads and a focus for fanboy rage.

However, in recent comments to developers in the Race to Market Challenge, Loke Uei of Microsoft’s Mobile Developer Experience Team seems to have the right idea as far as how the Marketplace can succeed, and provide real value to both users and developers.

As reported at TechFlash, Loke Uei said…

It’s up to you play your pricing, but we would definitely want to promote that you make more money selling applications than selling your application in a dollar store. I know, 99 cents is interesting — yes, consumers like to pay 99 cents for applications. But 99 cents, come on, I think your app is worth more than that.

That makes a lot of sense to me. The iPhone is, through and through, a consumer product. Game changing certainly, innovative, but aimed squarely at consumers and not professionals or business users.The vast majority of the Apps sold in the AppStore are therefore entertainment based. In fact many are not even really applications, but one-note software jokes. The massive sales numbers reported for the AppStore are heavily filled out by such 99 cent or free gems as applications that list “Yo Mama” jokes, or make it look like your phone is on fire, or allow you to pretend your phone is an AK-47…and that is not even mentioning the 35 different programs that let you make customizable flatulence noises with your iPhone. Sure there are some excellent productivity and communications applications out there for the iPhone, but it is getting harder and harder to see the gems for the bargain priced trash in the AppStore.

Windows Mobile has never been much of a consumer product. It has been and can be, sure, but by and large Windows Mobile smartphones are business-class devices. It’s users are not the types, usually, to install and uninstall apps and widgits on whims, or to toss lots of poorly coded joke programs on to their phone. They depend on their smartphone not only as a lifestyle tool but also as a business device. They take care to install the programs that are useful to them and avoid garbage that will just slow down their performance. It makes sense therefore that Microsoft would be seeking more serious business and productivity applications for the Marketplace, as opposed to WinFart…and more serious applications usually cost more serious money to develop, and therefore to buy.

Will some people be turned off by paying $9.99 instead of .99 for a mobile application, especially sight unseen? Absolutely. Therefore include time or feature limited demos so people know what they are paying for. However, if the application has clear value and is WORTH paying for, I feel that people will do so…or at least enough will do so to make it profitable.

Will the Marketplace match the sales numbers of the AppStore? Not a chance…but then they would never do that even if Microsoft PAID users to download the programs. However, if the goal of the Marketplace is to be a valuable tool for users and a way for developers to showcase and sell their hard work, then higher priced – more significant applications are the way to go.

Microsoft is right to encourage devs to price their products accordingly to their worth and not according to maximum sales potential. Leave the fart programs to the iPhone, Windows Mobile users have work to do.