It is very unfortunate that Microsoft, though opting to reap the benefit from sales of its Windows Mobile to the world’s 6th largest population, decided to keep its developers away from having the benefit of developing for it. Pakistani developers and firms are unable to register and submit applications for Windows Marketplace
AS WE all know that Mobilink has launched Windows 7 Phone in Pakistan. Mobilink is extremely proud to mention that this is second launch in the world, after US, introducing Win 7 Phone. A phone which costs about 50,000 PRK would give approximately 5,000 PRK for each license to Win 7. Seems like Pakistani Telecom Industry is growing leaps and bounds; and this is evident – Hafeez center which was flooded with computer shops now has probably more mobile phone shops then computer shops. There may be more mobile connections then land line numbers; and I am pretty optimistic this would surpass the number of citizens (obviously, everyone will have more than 1 connection and cell phone).
However, it is very unfortunate that Microsoft though deciding to reap the benefit from sales of its Windows Mobile to the world’s 6th largest population, decided to keep its developers away from reaping the benefit of developing for it. Pakistani developers and firms are unable to register and submit applications for Windows Marketplace. While, all these foreign companies are making huge profits and sending back to their native countries as income. Unfortunately, the country that is proud to be second in the launch: cannot get access to application store markets for profit. I know, people do come up with alternatives by requesting friends in US or India, to help them get license but the problem is that those countries get the good name on Market Place while we develop behind a false identity.
Ideally, mobile carriers should let local entrepreneurs make use of app world: and solve some real local problems. Mobilink could have added a tab or another market termed as “Pakistani Store” and has let developers from Pakistan to develop localized Applications. I have no problem with Mobilink taking 30 % (like Apple and Google does) and have circulated payments to developers after 2 months.
There is lot of ideas that would make good sense for local application store e.g. local news, yello.pk (letting you find good restaurants around), jokes in Urdu, etc.
This would have helped our local developers in two ways; first, developers perfect the solution and have some local revenue stream and then get prepared for global markets, and second, build portfolio and receive rating to show to prospective customers.
So it is a point of concern that Microsoft which has such huge presence in Pakistan for sales purpose as well they invest so heavily in promoting their products (the recent example would be the highly talked about Open Doors Event) do not open their doors for someone to leverage their platform to sell their products to others. It does raise some point of concern that as a country does organizations like Microsoft, Google see us as innovators or just a country where cheap outsourcing happens so we should not be made part of innovation or not given access to latest technologies.
Does this mean due to this stigma we end up doing low end coding jobs while the real innovation happens elsewhere?
By Qazi@greenwhite.org
http://www.technologytimes.pk/mag/2010/dec10/issue04/why_microsoft_treats_us.php
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