Comments

1. Manbolo

   
   Posted on: August 24, 2009 at 8:28PM  

   Hello Francis,

   Thank you for this presentation.

   How can we submit again a product after a first failed ? If we modify the product cab and try to certify it again, we've the following error;

   "WE’RE SORRY. AN ERROR HAS OCCURRED.

   An error has occurred during the processing of your submission. Please review the status of the submission and recommended next steps on your dashboard . If the problem persists, please contact support ."

   Regards,
2. bbj

   
   Posted on: August 25, 2009 at 6:27AM  

   The app submission ppt suggests a 46x46 icon is required, other docs say 45x45 icon. Is this just a typo in the ppt ?
3. bbj

   
   Posted on: August 25, 2009 at 6:35AM  

   Pricing,

   Can someone provide any information on

   i) whether price points we enter include or exclude VAT/Sales tax (probably US excludes + elsewhere it includes but just guessing)

   ii) what rates of VAT/Sales tax are being applied in different territories, e.g. are you charging a single 'generic' European rate for all countries in Europe or country specific rates if prices are to include VAT.

   iii) Operator billing. Is there any option to disable this, if not can you tell us what %age operators will be charging as this normally has a very significant effect on net reveunes - e.g. its not uncommon for say Indian operators to demand 60% of reveune  
4. Mike Francis

   

   
   Posted on: August 25, 2009 at 4:02PM  

   Manbolo - For help with this error you can leverage the support options, available on the left side bar under  the "Support" link when you log into the Markplace portal, to contact us through email and we will swiftly address this issue.

   Thanks,

   Mike
5. Mike Francis

   

   
   Posted on: August 25, 2009 at 4:03PM  

   bbj - yes this is incorrect. The correct dimensions are 45 x45 as stated in the application submission requirements doc.

   Thanks,

   Mike
6. Mike Francis

   

   
   Posted on: August 25, 2009 at 4:04PM  

   Manbolo - For help with this error you can leverage the support options, available on the left side bar under  the "Support" link when you log into the Marketplace portal, to contact us through email and we will swiftly address this issue.

   Thanks,

   Mike
7. Mike Francis

   

   
   Posted on: August 26, 2009 at 11:41AM  

   bbj -

   i) whether price points we enter include or exclude VAT/Sales tax (probably US excludes + elsewhere it includes but just guessing) [Mike]  In general, app prices in the US and Canada exclude taxes and include them for all other regions.

   ii) what rates of VAT/Sales tax are being applied in different territories, e.g. are you charging a single 'generic' European rate for all countries in Europe or country specific rates if prices are to include VAT.[Mike]  It is specific to each country other than USA and Canada, where tax is calculated by the user’s location (county, city, state, etc.)

   iii) Operator billing. Is there any option to disable this, if not can you tell us what %age operators will be charging as this normally has a very significant effect on net reveunes - e.g. its not uncommon for say Indian operators to demand 60% of reveune  [Mike]  I am not sure what is being asked to turn off. If it is to turn off charging tax by the MOs then that is not possible and it would be against the law.

   Thanks,

   Mike
8. braksoftware

   
   Posted on: September 03, 2009 at 3:08PM  

   Hello Mike,

   I'd like to find out whether this 10MB limit on binary size is going to be lifted. I have a product that I really want to port over to Windows Mobile, but altogether my resources total about 42MB, and I don't want to make the user download the files from a different server after installing the product, so the 10MB limit is basically a showstopper for me.

   If you don't have plans to raise it, I would urge you to consider it, I am currently forced to write for other platforms.

   Brian
9. bbj

   
   Posted on: September 05, 2009 at 4:34AM  

   Hi Mike

   Regarding Operator Billing.

   When products are sold via Operators they typically 'demand' a share of the end user price - not entirely unreasonable given they are providing a service. However what is usually more difficult to swallow with is the fact they typically demand between 40% and 80% of the end user price (after tax), leaving the remaining to be split between content aggregators + developers.

   Since the MS/Developer split is 30:70 AFTER cost of sales/taxes (including Operator Billing 'costs' )  this means that revenue can be very severely reduced

   E.g. near the worst end of the scale a $10 product in Phillipines yields $8 to operator,  $2 to share between Aggregator/Developer = $0.6/$1.4 = i.e. revenue reduced from ~70% to ~14% of end user price for developer.  (Ignoring tax and price point validity here)

   To deal with this several different routes are possible:

   i) Developers simply say they are not prepared to sell products via Operators - thus 'disable the Operator Billing' option as a route to market. Yes it has conseqences but so does loosing the majority of your reveune to operators.

   ii) Different prices can be applied to the products, one for credit card type transactions and another for Operator Billing transactions which take into account the (extravagant) charges Operators apply to what is in effect a simple sales transaction cost. This is entirely reasonable + legal + an  increasingly common way round the issue.

   iii) Developers factor in an average 'Operator Billing cost' - into their prices. That way there is only a single price point but tends to yield higher prices, particularlar for people that striongly prefer to pay by credit card...

   This has nothing to do with avoiding / disabling taxes.

   Thus an option to disable selling products where Operator Billing is the way to pay is strongly desirable. Failing that, information on what rates the Operators will be charging so we can effectively have constant 'factory gate' prices is really requrired.  

   Thanks in advance
10. bbj

    
    Posted on: September 05, 2009 at 4:45AM  

    To Brian/bracksoftware

    The 10MB is little to do with MS but all to do with network operator gateway limitations. i.e. Operators have to update their infrastructure to support more than 10MB per blob. (Yes if everything was WiFi... but it isnt, or if >10MB items only avail when using WiFi - but thats also confusing etc)

    Apart from that, there are a couple of other issues, e.g. time it takes to download 10MB + the actual $/£ cost of downloading 10MB can easily exceed the price you actually pay for the goods in the first place.... (non WiFi of course)

    For what its worth, only a few yrs ago the limit was typically 1MB... so its all moving on